Jonathan Lash Announces Retirement

ALF
Fri, 10 Feb 2017 17:36:30 +0000

Here is a letter that was also sent out today by the Chair of the Board of Trustees, Gaye Hill:

To Hampshire’s Students, Faculty, Staff, Alumni, Parents, and Friends,

You heard from Jonathan this morning about his plans to retire as Hampshire’s president next year. I want to take this opportunity to communicate with you on behalf of the Board of Trustees.

The most important job of any governing board is to identify and select the right person to lead their institution. I want you to know that the highest priority, for me and for all the trustees, is to carry out a search for a new president that achieves both continuity and quality of leadership for this remarkable institution. I have to admit that today’s announcement is especially poignant for me. My first assignment as a trustee joining the Board seven years ago was to lead the presidential search that resulted in welcoming Jonathan into our community. Looking back on that search process, and what we all have achieved at the College since then, gives me full confidence that we have another opportunity before us to open a new, exciting, and prosperous chapter for Hampshire.

Our process for finding a president must and will be steeped in Hampshire’s values: our commitment to discovery through inquiry, to rigorous research, to airing and respecting differing viewpoints, to listening to each other. We will succeed by doing this work together, all of us, as a community. We have already begun laying out a plan on how to proceed. The Board will agree on a search process during our meeting this weekend, and over the next few weeks we will identify individuals from the Board of Trustees and the campus who will serve on and chair a search committee. In March the hard work of the search committee will begin. One of the first steps will be to ask you to share your thoughts about what Hampshire needs in a president to lead us from 2018 into the third decade of the 21st century. We will be as transparent about the search process as possible, recognizing that there are obvious issues of confidentiality for candidates, and we will communicate with you regularly and a lot. I look forward to having much more to share with you in the month ahead.

As he wrote in his letter, Jonathan will be fully engaged as president until the day that our new president is ready to begin. So now is not the time for a retrospective on Jonathan’s tenure. There will be ample opportunity for that. But as someone whose Hampshire experience has paralleled Jonathan’s, I know this: what inspired me seven years ago inspires me now more than ever. My fellow trustees and I believe in Jonathan’s vision that this College, born of change and educating for change, must continue to be a leading voice for critical inquiry and analysis, creative vision and expression, academic innovation, and informed activism in support of meaningful change in our country and the world. I am so grateful for Jonathan’s ability to listen, to question, to consider new perspectives, and to give all of us room to contribute, create, and make a difference — these are qualities we will seek in a new president as well.

The Board of Trustees and I are honored to be working with you and alongside you as we begin the process of a presidential transition. This is a most important time in the life of the College. Together let us embrace it and work to continue to move Hampshire forward.

With appreciation,

Gaye