Blondin will retire in June this year after 33 years in higher education. She is the fifth president of Clark State, joining in July 2013, and will have served for 13 years as of this summer.
She holds a Bachelor of Arts in English with a minor in Spanish from Purdue University and earned both her master’s and doctorate in 18th‑century British literature from Arizona State University.
Her career includes serving as chancellor, chief academic officer and chief student officer at Arkansas Tech University–Ozark Campus, as well as professor of English at Arkansas Tech University. She has also been an associate professor of English at the University of Arkansas–Fort Smith and a faculty associate at Arizona State University.
Throughout her career, she has received numerous honors and awards and has been active in many professional organizations.
A native of Carmel, Indiana, Blondin, along with her twin sister Jill, graduated from Carmel High School in 1989.
Her father, Roger Blondin, who will be 87 this year, still lives in Carmel in the house he built in 1968. He was in aeronautical engineer, while her mother was the Chamber of Commerce director in Carmel, Indiana.
“I like to think that both of those professions and their backgrounds really impacted my sister Jill and my younger sister Jan and myself,” Blondin said.
Blondin spoke about being a rebel when she was younger and in high school, starting her rebellious phase at Disney World in 1976 during a time her dad had a business trip in Orlando. She said she was a huge Donald Duck fan, and while at a character breakfast, she took off running and jumped on Donald Duck’s back.
“I can hear him still in the costume, yelling, ‘There’s somebody on my back.’ I would not get off. My parents had to come and extricate me,” she said. “That was (one of) my first acts of absolute defiance ... So Disney World really formed my personality and my desire to be a rebel.”
In high school she got in a lot of trouble, but eventually learned how to “channel energy in a positive way.” She continued to get support from her parents and standing up for what she believed in while coexisting with people she may not have always agreed with.
“I work with students every day who don’t have the support system. I empathize, I work, understand and try to understand and support them as they need, because I will say I had that background,” she said.
While at Purdue, Blondin was in student government and an intern at the Kennedy Center and worked in the first office of cultural diversity affairs that helped her “formulate a vision for her career.”
“(College) really formed an administrative bone in my body that was developing and would ultimately lead me to become a college president,” she said.
Some of the lessons she learned were to seek out a mentor who will tell you what you need to hear rather than what they think you want to hear, to believe that systems can be changed and to recognize that excellence deserves to be acknowledged.
At Arizona State University, she learned about rejection, to stand up and advocate for herself, to encourage all viewpoints and to let people teach each other.
As a faculty member and professor, Blondin learned that everyone deserves a chance and meaningful support; that it’s important to develop and stay true to core beliefs; to be a team player who listens to colleagues; and to get involved and build networks beyond one’s immediate work community.
While serving as chief student and academic officer, she brought energy and dedication to her work, never waited to be asked before stepping in and embraced the principle of always putting students first while staying as engaged in the community as possible.
During her time as chancellor, Blondin felt she was “at the right place at the right time.”
She learned to be accessible and responsive; to find national, regional, and local leadership opportunities; to always sit at the table and not to overreact to bad news.
“The most important lesson I learned (was) don’t confuse who you are with the job you do,” she said.
As for life after being Clark State’s president, Blondin said she’s ready for retirement but that she and her husband, Andy Fox, are “not going anywhere.” She said she’ll be consulting on at a national level on various issues like accreditation, strategy planning, board governance and budgeting.
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