November 3, 2005

Jim Craiglow

By Lauren Heaton

Antioch University Chancellor Jim Craiglow said this week that he will retire in December, six months earlier than had been expected.

Antioch Seattle President Toni Murdock will step in as acting chancellor until the university hires a permanent chancellor next spring or summer. She also will maintain her position as senior president of Antioch Seattle.

In a time of transition, Antioch University needs to continue to create a unified identity while maintaining its place at the vanguard of higher education, Craiglow said on Tuesday.

Craiglow, 64, has worked at Antioch for 29 years. Since 2002 he has served as chancellor, and before that he was president of Antioch University New England. He has the longest record as an Antioch administrator in the institution’s history, said Scott Sanders, the Antioch archivist.

Craiglow had planned to retire as chancellor in June 2006 but announced at the Antioch University Board of Trustees’ meeting earlier this fall his intention to take an early six-month sabbatical.

He and Murdock will spend November working on the transition before Craiglow takes his official leave on Dec. 1.

“With a good, solid leadership team in place and the transition work for the most part done, involving the search for my replacement, it seemed appropriate to advance my sabbatical a bit,” he said. “Things are in good hands, which allows me to move forward into something different.”

Over the summer, the Board of Trustees, led by its chairman, Art Zucker, began to organize a chancellor search committee to find the university’s next leader, Zucker said. The nine-member committee, chaired by Zucker, includes university trustees and members of the University Leadership Council, which includes the presidents of the university’s five campuses, the university dean and the chief financial officer. The committee has defined the role of the chancellor, hired a professional search firm and hopes that the university could hire someone as early as next spring, Zucker said.

In the interim, Zucker said he is confident that Murdock has the leadership capabilities to handle the duties of the chancellorship. Over the summer she was elected by other members of the Leadership Council to serve as its liaison to the Board of Trustees.

“We have a very strong leader in Toni,” Zucker said. “She’s the most experienced and the most senior administrator. She has an excellent background at Antioch University Seattle for nine years and she has 30 years of experience in higher education. She understands the institution and she has the clear respect of her colleagues.”

Zucker said the change is not related to the Renewal Plan at Antioch College, the hiring of the college’s new president, Steven Lawry, and the recent appointment of Zucker as chair of the board.

“It’s part of dealing with change, that’s part of Antioch,” he said. “The world changes rapidly, and if we’re not changing we’re not keeping up.”

Craiglow said he feels very positive and has few regrets about his chancellorship at Antioch. During his tenure he built a strong leadership team with the Leadership Council that successfully advanced the concept of the university, he said. Under his leadership, the university increased the level of collaboration between the campuses and capitalized on the synergies within the institution to become more integrated, he said.

Craiglow said he was “highly instrumental” in the creation of Antioch College’s new curriculum, was a key player in the recruitment of a new college president, and also encouraged new programmatic development in university doctoral and certification programs.

“The bottom line would be that I probably helped to create a level of stability that was desperately needed for the institution,” Craiglow said. “We have a much clearer vision of where we ought to be going as a university, which keeps us looking ahead into the future.”

“It’s been a long run, a great run, and one I’m incredibly proud of,” he said. “But I still have energy and vitality and interests that over the course of many years I’ve not been able to address. I’m looking forward to sorting out the next chapter of my life.”

As for what lies ahead for the next chancellor, Craiglow suggested that the biggest challenge would be to figure out how to “knit the university together and create a vision that enhances the identity of the institution.”

The chancellor will deal with big picture issues, such as sustainability, defining institutional values in a changing world, and respecting the history and culture of each campus while recognizing synergistic opportunities that could strengthen the university system, he said.

“It’s a whole balancing and juggling act that requires diplomacy to get people to work collaboratively together and not lose their identity,” Craiglow said.

Over the coming months, Murdock said she expects to focus on helping support a smooth transition for Lawry, continuing to plan universitywide programs, and determining how better to share the resources and strengths of each campus.

“It’s been kind of a whirlwind, and I’m extremely honored and also humbled because Antioch is a great institution with such great traditions,” Murdock said. “I have a strong team, and we’ll work together to keep my college and the university going at the same time.”

Murdock said she is not a candidate for chancellor, and she plans to return full-time to the presidency of Antioch Seattle once a permanent chancellor is hired.

Contact: lheaton@ysnews.com