About Andrew T. Hsu, President of the College of Charleston

On November 28, 2018, the Board of Trustees selected Andrew T. Hsu to be the 23rd president of the College of Charleston. He formally took office on May 16, 2019.

Before joining the College, Hsu was the provost and executive vice president for academic affairs at The University of Toledo, a public research university in Ohio with 21,000 students, 220 bachelor’s and master’s degree programs and 40 doctoral programs. In this role, Hsu led the university through a strategic planning process and oversaw its implementation. Through a campus-wide effort, the strategic plan implementation resulted in significant progress in student success, research and scholarly activities, and fundraising: The university improved its first-year retention rate by more than 10% and graduation rate by 5.5%, and research award and fundraising were both up by 20%.

Before joining Toledo, Hsu served as the dean of engineering at San Jose State University and as the associate vice president for research and the dean of the Graduate School at Wright State University.

Throughout his career, Hsu has remained actively engaged in the community. He currently serves on the Spoleto Festival USA Board of Directors, the Charleston Symphony Board, the Tri-County Cradle to Career Collaborative Board of Directors, the Charleston Regional Development Alliance Leadership Council and the S.C. Commission for Minority Affairs – Asian American and Pacific Islander Advisory Committee. Previously, he was a member of the Board of Governors for Rocket Innovation, the Leadership Council of CalCharge, the Board of Governors of Edison Materials Technology Center in Dayton, the Board of Governors of the University Clean Energy Alliance of Ohio, and was appointed by Governor Mitch Daniels as chair of the Indiana Bioproduct Commission.

As a faculty member, Hsu exemplified the faculty-scholar model. He received numerous teaching awards as a professor, maintained a continuously funded research lab for 15 years and published 98 refereed journal and conference articles. He is a fellow of the American Council on Education (ACE) and is an associate fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA).

Hsu earned his Ph.D. in aerospace engineering from Georgia Institute of Technology in 1986. He then worked in industry for 11 years with Sverdrup/NASA and Rolls-Royce, where he developed unique industry perspectives and leadership skills, before joining academia in 1997.

In his free time, Hsu enjoys tennis, classical music and spending time with his wife, Rongrong and four daughters, Carol, Kristie, Jenny and Emma.