Whitman College president makes two cabinet-level appointments

Whitman College has two new vice presidents.

College President Sarah R. Bolton appointed Gina Z. Ohnstad as vice president for communications and Adam Miller as vice president for admission and financial aid.

Both are cabinet-level appointments.

For Ohnstad and Miller, their jobs are already familiar.

Both have served in the positions in an interim basis since August 2021.

They both will take on their respective roles in a permanent compacity immediately, the college announced in a news release.

Ohnstad leads the college’s communications team, which handles both internal and external communications.

She has been with the college since 2014. Prior to being named interim vice president for communications, she served as media relations strategist and senior director of communications.

“Gina has led significant progress in communications at Whitman during her eight years at the college,” Bolton said in the release. “She brought forward effective new approaches to telling Whitman's story to prospective students and families and also managed very complex communications throughout the COVID-19 pandemic and presidential transition, all without missing a beat as she stepped into the interim role.”

Ohnstad has a background in television news, where she won four Emmy Awards, according to the release.

Miller has been with the college since 2013.

He began as the director of admissions, where he led a team of staff and student workers before being promoted to interim vice president.

“Adam has been a major contributor to Whitman’s admission and financial aid strategy during the past nine years,” Bolton said in the release. “He has played key roles in reaching out to students here in our region and around the country, advancing both the diversity and the internationality of our student body significantly and shifting our financial aid to better meet student needs.”

Before coming to Whitman, Miller worked in the admission office at Claremont McKenna College in Claremont, Calif.