Presidential Search Committee, Search Firm Named
Dear Members of the Wooster College Community,
I write with an update on the presidential search we will undertake to select the 13th president of The College of Wooster. As you know, President Sarah Bolton announced in January that she would be leaving the College this summer to become the new president at Whitman College.
The Board of Trustees was pleased to return to campus last week for our regular winter meeting, where we engaged with members of the staff and faculty and heard from a variety of students. It is always so fulfilling to witness the amazing work that happens at Wooster and to be reminded of the people that make it all possible.
During the full board meeting held Saturday, Feb. 26, trustees took the critical first steps in the presidential search process, including approving our Presidential Search Committee, the search firm with whom we will partner in this effort, and a general timeline for the process.
Our Presidential Search Committee consists of 17 members of the Wooster community, including two students, two members of the staff, four faculty, and nine trustees and alumni. Thank you to everyone who offered to serve or was willing to be nominated, and to the teams who reviewed and selected representatives: Vice President and Dean of Students Myrna Hernández, Scot Council, Wooster’s Staff Committee, Dean for Faculty Development Christa Craven, Conference with Trustees Chair Laura Sirot, and the faculty’s Committee on Committees.
The Presidential Search Committee is charged with leading a transparent, inclusive, and successful search that leads to identifying a candidate to become Wooster’s 13th president by July 2023. While representing these various constituency groups, the responsibility of committee members is to first and foremost represent the needs of the whole institution. I have asked long-time Trustee Peter Sundman ’81 to chair this diverse committee of individuals, whose experiences at Wooster span seven decades from the 1950s to 2020s.
- Peter Sundman ’81, Trustee and Search Committee Chair
- Leslie Wingard, Mildred Foss Thompson Chair of English Language and Literature and Incoming Dean for Faculty Development
- Brooke Krause, Assistant Professor of Economics
- Sarah Sobeck, Professor of Chemistry and Associate Dean for Experiential Learning
- Greg Shaya, Henry J. and Laura H. Copeland Chair of European History
- Sháqūez Dickens, Assistant Director to the Vice President for Equity, Inclusion, and Diversity
- Lori Makin-Byrd, Senior Advisor to the President on Civil Rights/Title IX Coordinator
- Noah Golovan, Class of 2023
- Amanda Iskin, Class of 2024
- Mark Goodman ’90, Trustee
- Ken Aldridge ’90, Trustee
- John Wilson ’78, Alumni Trustee
- Sandeep Bhatia ’89, President of the Alumni Association and Alumni Trustee
- Christopher Causey ’85, Trustee
- Anne Wilson ’73, P’05, Trustee
- Jennie Saliers ’83, Trustee
- Jim McClung ’59, Emeritus Life Trustee
- Sally Staley ’78, Chair of the Board of Trustees (ex officio member)
I will serve on the committee as an ex officio member, and Sally Whitman, senior assistant to the president and office manager, will serve as principal staff to the committee. Please join me in thanking all of our committee members for their willingness to serve and their continued commitment to Wooster.
To support the Committee’s work, we have retained Storbeck Search, a leading search firm in higher education and nonprofit leadership. Storbeck brings extensive expertise and knowledge of the higher education landscape with a particular devotion to select liberal arts institutions like Wooster, having led recent presidential searches at Carleton College, Colorado College, Haverford College, Lafayette College, Rhodes College, and Scripps College. More than two-thirds of their searches are conducted for returning clients, and 87 percent of their executive-level placements since 2007 are either still in office or served for five years or more. Storbeck is committed to delivering top leadership for their partners through the careful development of excellent and diverse candidate pools. In 2021, 56 percent of the firm’s placements identified as women and 46 percent identified as persons of color.
In the coming weeks, the Presidential Search Committee will schedule multiple listening sessions to gather your insights and input on what makes Wooster distinctive, our values, challenges and opportunities, and the essential attributes of our next president. These will be important opportunities to help us shape the formal presidential search prospectus. We encourage you to attend one of these sessions as they are announced or send your questions and comments to us at presidentialsearch@wooster.edu. Stay tuned for further announcements.
We have established a Presidential Search website at wooster.edu/presidential-search, where you can learn more about the members of the Presidential Search Committee and stay up to date on their work throughout the process.
Our work to identify Wooster’s Interim President for the 2022-2023 academic year remains ongoing. Our Interim Presidential Search Committee, led by Trustee Christopher Causey ’85, and including Professor Tom Tierney, Provost Lisa Perfetti, Trustee Anne Wilson ’73 P’05, and myself, has been reviewing nominations and meeting with potential candidates. Thanks to those of you who took time to engage with the process either by submitting nominations or raising your hand with interest. We expect to reach a decision on our Interim President no later than the end of March with a formal announcement to follow.
I look forward to this exciting process and all we will achieve together. Thank you so much for the great work you do to continue to advance the mission of The College of Wooster.
Warm Regards,
Sally J. Staley ‘78
Chair, Board of Trustees
Posted in Presidential Search on March 2, 2022.
