MIDDLEBURY — The Green Mountain Higher Education Consortium (GMHEC) has named Corinna Noelke of Middlebury as its first executive director to oversee the combined administrative cost-saving efforts of Champlain College, Saint Michael’s College and Middlebury College.
Noelke has held numerous roles at Middlebury College since 2006 and has been instrumental in the consortium’s recent efforts in the areas of business management, special projects and finance. The GMHEC was created in 2013 by the three Vermont private colleges in an effort to reduce costs associated with purchasing supplies and services common to all three institutions.
As director of special projects at Middlebury, Noelke had been instrumental in leading various consortium efforts to date, according to Patrick Norton, vice president for finance and treasurer at Middlebury College. Her new appointment was made after a national search by the three CFOs of GMHEC. She began work in April.
According to David Provost, senior vice president of finance and advancement at Champlain, Noelke has already had some early wins for the consortium in combining purchasing card contracts with JP Morgan and Office Supply; working on combining management software; and beginning to explore merging benefits administration tasks for the three schools.
“With Corinna as the executive director, we will continue to move forward on improving our efficiencies and driving down administrative costs in areas common to all three colleges,” Provost added.  
Both Saint Michael’s and Champlain have about 2,000 traditional undergraduate students and Middlebury has 2,450 students. Through cooperative planning efforts, the three colleges expect to directly address areas of rising costs and continue to strive to make higher education accessible and affordable to all students.