April 7, 2005

Antioch announces hiring of new president at college

By Robert Mihalek

Steven W. Lawry, who works for the Ford Foundation and who has experience in international development, has been appointed the next president of Antioch College, Jim Craiglow, the Antioch University chancellor, announced in a press release issued last Wednesday.

As president, Lawry will be responsible for continuing to implement the Antioch renewal plan, in which the college is overhauling its curriculum and rearranging the co-op program, and for raising money for the institution.

Rick Jurasek, who has served as the college’s interim president since July 2004, when Joan Straumanis’s contract expired, will return to his previous position of vice president and dean of faculty.

Lawry was named the 22nd president of Antioch College after a national search led by Craiglow. Antioch formed a committee of Antioch University board members, college faculty and staff and other administrators in the Antioch system to select the new president. Craiglow said that over 80 candidates expressed interest in the position.

A precise date for when Lawry will arrive on campus has not been set yet, though Lawry said he hopes to join the college by the start of classes next fall.

Lawry has been traveling overseas as part of his work with the Ford Foundation and was unavailable for a telephone interview. Staying in Hanoi, Vietnam, for about the last week, he did answer a number of questions from the News via e-mail.

Calling Antioch “a vitally important liberal arts college that has been a center of experimentation and innovation in American higher education since its founding,” Lawry said he is excited about “supporting the educational goals of students who are drawn to Antioch College.”

“I want to do everything I can to sustain an educational and social climate supportive of free and open inquiry and respect for contending ideas,” he said. “I believe this is what Antioch students are looking for, and the college’s leaders have an obligation to meet these expectations.”

He also said that he was attracted to the job by the renewal plan. The new curriculum outlined in the plan features experiential learning communities, in which groups of students will study together under the tutelage of several teachers. This approach will ensure that Antioch will offer an education that is not only rigorous but “brings together different academic traditions in the examination of complex, real-world problems,” Lawry said.

Lawry singled out the plan’s recommendation that Antioch establish an endowment fund for a cultural and intellectual freedom initiative, which, he said, “speaks very directly to Antioch’s traditional intellectual and ethical concerns.”

Dan Kaplan, the chairman of the university’s Board of Trustees, stressed in a phone interview Friday that Lawry would focus on raising funds for the college. “Antioch College needs financial resources, and the Antioch president needs to spend a significant amount of time raising money,” Kaplan said. He said the new president would spend “whatever time it takes” on fundraising.

Noting that fundraising is a key part of the president’s job, Craiglow said in an interview that Lawry will spend a “fair amount of time on the road,” meeting with alumni, donors and foundations.

When asked how Lawry would be expected to run the college’s daily operations while spending much of his time away from campus, Craiglow said, “We will work to strengthen the internal administrative structure so he has the opportunity to focus on the critical external work that needs to be done.” Craiglow did not want to elaborate further.

Last week, the college announced that it has raised $42 million for its capital campaign, a $65 million effort to bolster the college’s endowment. The renewal plan calls for Antioch to raise an additional $25 million to support all of its recommendations. Last fall, Antioch announced that it had secured nearly $9 million in gifts and pledges to help implement the renewal plan.

Next fall, entering students will be the first to study under the college’s new curriculum, in experiential learning communities.

In the e-mail interview, Lawry said that the president’s “larger, overarching responsibility is to ensure the financial health and viability of the college.” Linking the college’s financial stability to the quality of Antioch’s curriculum, he said the college needs good physical facilities; a strong endowment that will help the college “offer innovative programs”; and the ability to offer scholarships to attract “talented students of diverse economic backgrounds.”

Noting that tuition will continue to be the main source of funds for the college, Lawry said that maintaining “adequate levels of enrollment” is vital to Antioch’s financial health. “The quality of Antioch’s offerings will attract students and attract private funding,” he said.

Since 2001 Lawry has served as the Ford Foundation’s director of the Office of Management Services and has been responsible for the foundation’s worldwide grants administration and for supporting 12 field offices in Asia, Africa, Russia and Latin America. Previously, Lawry worked for four years as the foundation’s representative to the Middle East and North Africa. From 1992 to 1997, he served as the assistant representative and program officer in Windhoek, Namibia, where he developed a program focused on rural poverty and resource management in Namibia and South Africa.

Lawry received a doctorate in environmental studies from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he also developed and served as the associate director of the university’s Land Tenure Center, a research group that studies and leads training on land tenure, rural development and social institutions.

Craiglow noted that Lawry’s work has centered on improving people’s lives and human rights and building civil and responsible societies. His work “speaks to the core of Antioch’s values all the way back to Horace Mann,” Craiglow said, referring to the college’s first president.

In February Lawry became engaged to Deborah Kahn, who teaches medieval art history at Boston University. Kahn has a 12-year-old son, William.

Craiglow, Kaplan and Jurasek expressed admiration for Lawry’s character.

Jurasek called Lawry the perfect president. Kaplan said that Lawry is thoughtful and a great listener. “He understands Antioch, its legacy as well as its challenges,” he said.

The board chairman said that those involved in the presidential search were looking for a candidate who could connect with the campus and with alumni and supporters of the college, which, Kaplan said, will “motivate and inspire alumni and major donors to get behind the renewal plan.”

Craiglow highlighted Lawry’s experience as a manager, leader and problem solver. “Those are things that at this juncture in time we hope he could bring to Antioch College,” Craiglow said.

Other changes are being made at Antioch. In an interview on campus last Thursday, Jurasek reported that Antioch College is beginning a search to fill a new position, vice president for development and external affairs. Jurasek said that the college expects to hire the new vice president by Aug. 1. Antioch also plans to hire a new director of public relations and communications.

The new vice president’s responsibilities will include fundraising and marketing, or the “positioning,” of Antioch, Jurasek said.