Helen Sobehart

MILWAUKEE — Helen Sobehart, Cardinal Stritch University president, announced her resignation on Monday, Dec. 7, after becoming the university’s first lay president in 2008, stating difficult decisions and serious personal challenges as reasons.

“In the past year, I have had to make many difficult decisions, so typical of a major transition during very tough economic times,” Sobehart said in the Dec. 10 press release from Cardinal Stritch. “… there are different leaders for different times, and the time is right for new leadership.”

Sobehart, a native of Pittsburgh, also explained in the press release the importance to tend to her family as her son, who lives in Pittsburgh, is experiencing sudden and severe health problems. “For both reasons, it is in the best interests of everyone that I step aside to provide a smooth path to new leadership.”

As the sixth president of Cardinal Stritch University, Sobehart led the school through significant advancements including: opening its new City Center campus in the former Laboratory Building at The Brewery redevelopment project in downtown Milwaukee, which gives Stritch a presence in the downtown business community and allowed the university to enhance educational opportunities available in and beyond the city; and expanding its traditional-age undergraduate population, which led to the renovation of the education building on the main campus into a second residence hall that houses 75 students.

Sobehart’s community involvement included the Leadership Cabinet of the United Way; the Milwaukee County Ethics Board, boards of the Public Policy Forum, Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra; TEMPO Mentoring Committee, Homeless Children’s Fund of Pittsburgh; International Commonwealth Council for Education and Management; and the Talent Divident Initiative through the Greater Milwaukee Committee. Sobehart is a continuing chair of Women Leading Education Across the Continents, an international group of scholars who study and provide information about the status of women in basic and higher educational leadership positions.

Sobehart, who began her career as a special education teacher in 1969, will serve her last day at Stritch on Dec. 31.