Still, teaching was the last career she imagined for herself. At the time, van Noort associated the profession with the limited options historically available to women.

“I didn’t want to be a stereotype,” she said.

She entered college considering other paths, including law and mathematics, and changed majors several times before discovering an aptitude for French. After graduation, an advisor encouraged her to pursue a master’s degree and an opportunity to teach English in France. Along the way, van Noort became a teaching assistant and stepped into a classroom for the first time. The experience transformed her thinking about both education and her own future.

“After the first week of classes, my worldview went upside down,” she said. “I loved it. I didn’t realize how incredibly satisfying it could be, how incredibly important it was. My stereotype of teaching as a gendered profession went out the window.”

She also led study abroad trips to France, including students who had never traveled by airplane or left their home region.

“The sense of accomplishment those students would get was so fulfilling for me to see,” she says.

Van Noort continued on to earn her Ph.D. and became a professor at the University of Texas at Arlington. Eventually, she was asked to take on administrative work. She found that administration allowed her to influence students’ experiences on a broader scale.

“I transformed lives teaching French, but I transformed many more lives doing this administrative work,” she said. “I’m helping to make it possible for the students to get here and get their education. So I just said yes a lot.” 

She particularly embraced opportunities outside of her existing expertise, working on projects involving a planetarium, a chemistry lab, engineering and online nursing programs. That willingness to venture beyond what was familiar became a recurring theme in her career. Eventually, her work brought her to North Carolina. After seven years working within the UNC System, including serving as chief academic officer and senior vice president for academic affairs, van Noort was sent to UNC Asheville following the departure of its provost. She initially had no intention of staying permanently.

“But I just fell in love with the university, and I fell in love with Western North Carolina,” she said. 

She sees the university’s work extending far beyond individual students. UNC Asheville graduates become the doctors, nurses, teachers, attorneys and other professionals who sustain the region’s communities and economy, a connection that remains at the core of van Noort’s work. 

“I think people forget the public good of university,” she said. “It’s not just for the individual, but it’s for everyone. It’s supposed to lift everyone when people are educated. I think we need to get back to that as a North star for what we do.” 

Her path has taken her from resisting what she perceived as a gender stereotype to occupying a senior leadership role in a field where women remain underrepresented at the highest levels. She says her key to navigating those spaces is authenticity.

“You really have to bring your real self,” van Noort said. “You have to bring your authentic self and not try to be what you think the room wants you to be. I spend a lot of time listening.”

She adds that curiosity, humility, and mentorship are also fundamental ingredients to success.

“Learn as much as you can,” she said. “Don’t be afraid to say, ‘I don’t know.’ Don’t be afraid to go out there and find good mentors.”

Those relationships become especially valuable as leaders advance and can become increasingly removed from candid feedback. Van Noort maintains what she calls her own “kitchen cabinet” of trusted people she can turn to for advice and perspective.

“It’s very important to maintain that,” she said, “to have somebody that you can say, hey, just give it to me straight. What am I doing wrong here?”

From a one-room Nebraska schoolhouse to the chancellor’s office at UNC Asheville, van Noort’s trajectory has been shaped by a willingness to reconsider what she thought she knew about herself.

“As long as you’re open, and you are ready, and you are curious, you really can succeed,” she said.