Patti Neuhold-Ravikumar, President

Patti Neuhold-Ravikumar is the 21st president of the University of Central Oklahoma and the institution’s first female president in its 130-year history. A contributing member of the Central community since 2007, she served in a variety of roles during that time; most recently serving as the institution’s Vice President of Finance and Chief Financial Officer.

Her multidimensional experience in higher education includes business operations, finance, human resources, professional development, strategic planning, institutional budget development, process improvement and governing board relations. As a result of her commitment to developing others, she led the creation of the award-winning UCO Management Development Program. Under her leadership, UCO’s compensation structure and health insurance plan were modernized to help create a contemporary people-centered benefits culture.

Among her contributions to UCO, she has served as chair or member of a number of institutional committees and task forces. These include the university branding initiative, Baldridge Quality Award, HLC criterion committees, program prioritization, budget model exploration, Affordable Care Act implementation, the creation of the University Planning Council, strategic planning and enrollment management planning. She has served as the chair of the Regional University System of Oklahoma Business Officers, chair of the Pension Committee for the Regional University System of Oklahoma and vice chair of the Oklahoma Higher Education Employee Interlocal.

As UCO’s vice president of finance and chief financial officer, she helped to navigate the financial turbulence created by the precipitous decline in enrollment and the significant loss of state funding. While the institution had lost more than $10.5 million in tuition revenue and $12.3 million in state funding by 2019, her leadership ensured the preservation of every job on campus and buffered our classrooms from negative impact. For her work in successfully guiding the institution through these rough waters, she was awarded the President’s Award in Applied Leadership in 2018.

A champion for progress and improvement, she leads the university’s pursuit of innovation in shaping the future of higher education. This includes educating for tomorrow’s skills, growing more fully online programs designed and taught by UCO’s talented faculty, partnering with businesses in the metropolitan area to expand non-credit offerings and capturing opportunities for growth through institutional responsiveness to student demand and economic need.

President Neuhold-Ravikumar currently serves on the Board of Directors for the Regional Food Bank of Oklahoma, the Greater Oklahoma City Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, Riversport Foundation and Oklahoma State Chamber. 

She is the Chair of the Economic and Community Development Committee of the Oklahoma State Regents of Higher Education Council of Presidents for fiscal year 2021-22, serves as an ex-officio member of the Edmond Chamber of Commerce Board of Advisors and is a member of the Oklahoma Business Roundtable and serves on the Advisory Board for The Oklahoma Academy. She previously served on the Oklahoma Center for the Advancement of Science and Technology (OCAST) board. Additionally, President Neuhold-Ravikumar recently was elected to the Executive Committee of the Coalition of Urban and Metropolitan Universities (CUMU) for the 2021 year.

President Neuhold-Ravikumar earned her bachelor’s degree in psychology with an emphasis in management from Oklahoma Christian University. She earned her master’s degree in industrial/organizational psychology from the University of Tulsa and is currently a doctoral candidate in organizational leadership at Concordia University – Chicago.