WM Dean Appointed President of Pennsylvania College

By Amber Lester Kennedy Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Carl Strikwerda

Carl Strikwerda will begin his new role as Elizabethtown’s 14th president on July 1 after serving six years in William and Mary’s administration. He will succeed retiring president Thomas E. Long at Elizabethtown, a private, residential college of 1,900 students in south central Pennsylvania.

“Elizabethtown College has made a marvelous choice,” said William and Mary President Taylor Reveley in a press release. “As Dean of Arts & Sciences, Carl Strikwerda showed a keen understanding of higher education and the sort of commitment to faculty, staff and students that will serve him well as a college president. He has been an important member of William and Mary’s administration, and we will miss him. I am confident Elizabethtown will thrive under Carl’s leadership.”

Strikwerda joined William and Mary in July 2004, serving as a professor of history and as dean of Arts & Sciences. As dean, he oversees 378 faculty, 21 department and 14 interdisciplinary programs that serve 5,600 students. In an e-mail to his staff sent Tuesday, Strikwerda said he was grateful for the opportunity to work with “such an extraordinarily gifted group of faculty and staff.”

His foremost goal as dean was to “give the faculty what they need to do their best work.” Toward that goal, he was able to maintain faculty hires despite shrinking budgets; increase the kinds of opportunities for mentored research; advocate for the needed replacement and renovation of academic facilities; and envision a focus on internationalization, civic engagement and interdisciplinary studies.

During his tenure, Arts & Sciences won major grants from the Freeman, Gates, Hewlett, Beckman and Mellon foundations, as well as the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and several federal agencies. The faculty also expanded the International Relations major, along with the teaching of Arabic, Chinese, Japanese and Russian, and developed the joint undergraduate program with the University of St. Andrews in Scotland.

“Carl has led the Faculty of Arts and Sciences through some good times and some hard ones (financial and otherwise) and done so with good will, fairness and a fine sense of humor,” said Terry Meyers, chancellor professor of English, in a press release.

Strikwerda was chosen for his new job following a yearlong national search. He previously taught at the University of Kansas, State University in New York at Purchase and the University of California at Riverside. He earned his bachelor’s degree from Calvin College, a master’s degree in history from the University of Chicago and a Ph.D. in history from the University of Michigan.

William and Mary Provost Michael Halleran said the search for Strikwerda’s successor will incorporate input from the campus community and begin by the end of the academic year. He will announce an interim dean to serve the 2011-12 academic year in the coming weeks.