Outgoing Board of Trustees Chair Grace Speights Leaves Legacy of Steady Leadership

After 13 years of service and leadership to the George Washington University's Board of Trustees, including seven years as chair, Grace Speights, J.D. '82, ends her tenure having helped guide the institution through some of its most defining moments and position it for what comes next.

Speights advanced university initiatives while navigating periods of significant change and disruption, with the COVID-19 pandemic being chief among them. During her tenure, she supported three university presidents and oversaw the presidential search that brought President Ellen M. Granberg to GW, helped advance a new strategic framework and celebrated a milestone achievement in the university's admission to the Association of American Universities.

Under her watch, the board launched trustee working groups and task forces on environmental, social and governance priorities, as well as naming and shared governance, which led to actions ranging from removing fossil fuels from the endowment to renaming the Student Center and moniker.

"It makes me feel so proud that I've been able to be a part of this trajectory of the university," said Speights, who first arrived on campus as a budding law student on a full-ride scholarship in 1979. She has for more than 40 years served an award-winning attorney at Morgan Lewis law firm.

Her tenure on the board, which began in 2013, coincided with a period of extraordinary change both at GW and the world beyond its campus. From a global pandemic to national conversations about race and belonging, Speights helped lead the university through uncertainty with a thoughtful and resolute approach.

"Throughout her service as board chair, Grace has led with courage, integrity and a deep belief in GW's mission and the well-being of our community," Granberg said. "She has been a steady and trusted presence during some of the most consequential moments in the university's history, and it has been my privilege to count her as not just as a trusted partner and mentor but as a friend."

That steadiness was tested almost immediately after she assumed the chair's role in June 2019. Nine months later, in March 2020, an unprecedented global public health crisis challenged the higher education world like never before, as leaders were tasked with not only keeping its communities safe but also adjusting in real time how they would continue offering world-class education to future leaders.

But through a robust testing system and community buy-in to safety measures such as mask and vaccine requirements, GW became a leader in the response to COVID-19, ultimately bringing students, faculty and staff back to campus safely.

"We had so many different things that occurred that were, in fact, crises," she said. "When you think about the pandemic-who had ever gone through a pandemic before? But we didn't panic. The whole university mobilized, and we got through that."

The challenges extended beyond COVID-19. In 2020, the murder of George Floyd sparked a wave of reflection and dialogue across campuses nationwide, including at GW. Through each moment, Speights emphasized deliberation over reaction, grounding decisions in the university's mission and values.

That approach left an impression on her peers, including fellow trustee Roslyn Brock, M.S. '89, who praised Speights for her "steadfast" leadership.

"During some very important moments in the life of George Washington University, Grace led with calm and clarity," Brock said. "Even when the stakes were high and the pressure was real, she kept the board anchored to what mattered most: the mission of the university and the integrity of the process."

Mark Chichester, B.B.A. '90, J.D. '93, who served as Speights' vice chair and will succeed her as chair starting on June 1, said that there are times leaders of an institution or governing body must be assertive, and other moments where they must step back, listen and facilitate.

Chichester, who praised Speights' integrity, said she does an exemplary job walking that line.

"She knows the room, she knows her fellow trustees and she's just very adroit at making sure that the perspectives and viewpoints that need to come to the table and be discussed, debated and argued at times, get to the table," Chichester said. "And out of that, we're just a better governing body. We've got a very healthy governing culture, and I attribute much of that to Grace's leadership."

While navigating crises was a defining part of her tenure, Speights pointed to the board's efforts to strengthen how decisions are made at GW, namely focusing on transparency and inclusiveness.

Early in her time as chair, Speights convened task forces that brought together faculty, students, staff, alumni and trustees on issues of import to the university, including shared governance. These efforts helped establish new guidelines and, more importantly, new habits of engagement, including a regular meeting of the board's Executive Committee with the Faculty Senate Executive Committee. She held quarterly conversations with Student Government Association leadership, university leaders and supported an ongoing dialogue with GW's Staff Council, especially at its inception.

"It allowed us to get input from the constituents here at the university, which is very important," said Speights, noting that some things might not necessarily have surfaced up to the board if they weren't receiving that input.

For many across campus, those changes were meaningful.

"As the inaugural Staff Council president, I'm deeply grateful to Chair Speights for offering staff a true seat at the table," said Bridget Schwartz, GW's director of student employment. "Through our conversations, it's clear that she genuinely cares about the staff experience and making GW a stronger community for all."

Students felt that commitment as well.

"She really cares deeply about the student experience here," said senior Ethan Lynne, the SGA president during the 2025-2026 school year. "I've really met no one who is a better listener and more caring and compassionate about anything that we brought her."

Interim Provost John Lach said that faculty, too, benefited from this approach, noting that Speights' leadership reinforced the conditions that allow faculty to thrive.

"One of the things that I've so admired about Chair Speights' leadership is her commitment to the things that are really important to faculty, everything from academic freedom to shared governance to that push to be a preeminent university," Lach said. "Those are the kinds of things that faculty want to be a part of. It helps us recruit faculty, it helps us keep them here and it really helps them achieve that level of excellence that we know they're capable of. Chair Speights sets a great tone for that."

That foundation of trust and collaboration proved critical as the university looked ahead to its future, particularly in what Speights called the single defining moment of her tenure, which was the selection of Granberg as GW's 19th president.

She still remembers the satisfaction she felt when Granberg accepted the role, which the university announced in January 2023. To Speights, the appointment represented a renewed focus for a university that had just begun its third century.

"Going through that process with her, and actually getting her to accept, for me reflected sort of a new era at GW-that we were going to be moving forward with a new leader who had great strategic vision," Speights said.

That shared quest for a strategic vision came to light with the development of a university-wide strategic framework-Raising Higher: OneGW's Path to Preeminence-officially launched last fall. The framework offers a bold roadmap for the university's future and was another milestone achievement that provided clarity after years of disruption.

"I am happy that we now have a strategic framework that will allow us to move forward into the future as strong as ever," Speights said, who also highlighted GW's 2023 admission to the Association of American Universities as a marker of the institution's upward trajectory, cementing its status as one of the nation's premier research institutions.

For Speights, however, the most meaningful moments often came not from boardrooms but in conversations with students, faculty and staff asking questions, offering perspectives or raising concerns that might otherwise go unheard. She has spoken at classes on governance and higher education, and she especially appreciates the questions undergraduate students have asked her.

"Those interactions have really been the most memorable experiences for me, because that's what this place is all about," Speights said.

As an alumna herself, she has long appreciated the distinctive character of GW's community, shaped in part by its location in the nation's capital. Serving as board chair only strengthened that institutional pride.

"People do not lack opinions at this university," she said with a smile. "And I think that's because of where we sit. We sit in Washington, D.C. This is the center of government, and I think our university-our students and our faculty-because they are here, have a sense that we need to speak up, and they do."

That sense of place and proximity is perhaps most visible each spring during Commencement on the National Mall, a tradition Speights calls unmatched. She feels the weight of the moment every year as she sits on the stage in the shadows of the Washington Monument looking out at a backdrop of ambitious graduates in the foreground with some of the world's most consequential institutions behind them.

"What other university has their commencement on the Mall? No one. That's an only-at-GW moment," she said. "When I look out at that large, diverse audience of students and parents, that's our future."

As she steps away from her role as chair, Speights does so with a deep sense of pride-not only in what the university has accomplished during her tenure, but in the role she has played in shaping its path.

"I am so optimistic about the future of GW," Speights said. "We have come so far, and I have confidence we are just on the verge of really taking off."

Though her time as chair is ending, her connection to GW is not. And as the university looks toward its next chapter, Speights is confident it is well positioned to meet it.