Williams College President
Williamstown, Massachusetts
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The Leadership Challenge
The next President of Williams, working in close collaboration with the faculty, students, trustees, and staff, will be expected to provide inspiring leadership and sound management to guide the College through challenging economic times while fostering a climate of academic excellence, creativity, and aspiration to ensure that Williams retains its position as one of the nation’s leading liberal arts colleges.
The Williams community has been engaged over the past several years in a planning process designed to identify the considerable challenges faced by the residential, liberal arts model of education and to develop effective responses. These challenges take the form, among other things, of rapidly evolving demographics; a daunting cost structure, particularly in financially stressed times; fundamental changes in the ways students study, learn, and access information; a wide variation in the kind of experiences students have had — and not had — when they arrive on campus; and the increasingly national and global market for higher education that tends to favor well-known “brands” over the more subtle virtues of the liberal arts experience.
Williams seeks in its next president a person who is energized by these challenges and the many others that will emerge. It seeks a person who will vigorously and rigorously engage the College community in charting a dynamic future for Williams. He or she will need the ability to lead, the courage to ask the College community to look critically at itself and openly at the world, and the judgment and experience to execute with a steady hand and a collaborative spirit. More specifically, the next president of Williams will be asked to:
- Work with the College, in the short term, to take the steps necessary to align its operating budget with available resources, to make financial judgments that will protect the long-term purchasing power of the endowment, and to ensure that the College’s overall financial model serves its mission and strategic objectives. Over the long term, continue to build the strength of College finances through ambitious and sustainable fundraising.
- As the leader of the College community, actively engage with students in a way that reinforces among them a sense of common purpose and shared experience.
- Continue, strengthen, and improve the College’s commitment to a culture of diversity and inclusion in its intellectual and community life, and across its student, faculty, and staff populations.
- Provide leadership and an intelligent public voice on higher education issues of national interest, particularly those relating to liberal arts education.
- Work with the faculty, as academic fields, curricular needs, and pedagogical approaches evolve, to recruit and retain the next generation of diverse and outstanding scholars and teachers.
- Lead the development of a strategy for deeper and broader engagement with the world outside of Williamstown, specifically those areas falling under the rubric of ‘globalization.’ Devise new ways of integrating this into the educational experience, bringing the world to Williams — and Williams to the world.
- Understanding that the quality of the undergraduate experience at a residential College depends on the health and vitality of student life, continue to assess the residential housing system and important dimensions of student governance, student services, and student culture.
- Strengthen and improve the bonds of mutual interest that knit Williams to the local community and to the institutions that nurture and sustain it.
- Critically examine the College’s approach to admissions, financial aid, and recruiting to ensure that Williams continues to attract an excellent and diverse student body.
- Reinforce existing strong and productive ties with the alumni body. Specifically, lead the process by which alumni activities and organizations better meet the needs and expectations of new alumni populations.
- Continue to build on Williams’ commitment to emission reductions and sustainability through strategic investments in capital projects, the adoption or reinforcement of appropriate policies and practices in College operations, and leadership in influencing community behavior.
Qualifications and Experience
Williams seeks a President with a passionate belief in the value of a residential liberal arts college, with the ability to articulate the mission of Williams College in a world of rapidly changing expectations among students, their parents, the academic community, and the opinion leaders of the nation.
The Search Committee understands that no single candidate will have all of the qualifications listed below, but it seeks candidates with some combination of the following experience and abilities:
- A broadly gauged intellectual, curious and widely read, with a lively turn of mind;
- A leader with the soul of a teacher who takes pleasure in the company of students;
- An accomplished person who knows and appreciates the academic world, its scholarly values and professional culture;
- An individual with an understanding of the global context and the large issues that are alive in the modern world, and an eagerness to draw Williams students and faculty into the debate;
- An expansive, open-minded leader, ready to listen and respectful of the views of others, who can readily join the personal and collaborative Williams culture;
- A seasoned manager, a collaborator and a team builder, with proven judgment as a mentor to an administrative team, and with the diligence and experience to execute the essential business of the College;
- An individual with the personal confidence to lead, the humility to listen, the capacity to credit others for their contributions;
- A leader who possesses the substance, strength, and optimism to bring the Williams community through the essential choices of the next decade;
- An individual with a demonstrated commitment to diversity and a personal understanding of the issues, with the courage to explore the full range of intellectual and emotional agendas that are essential to a robust community;
- An inspiring individual with the capacity to steward the Williams culture of philanthropy, to reach students, parents, friends, and alumni, and nurture their ties to the Williams mission;
- A warm person with a vivid sense of humor, most especially when College life tries the patience of presidents.
To Apply
Williams College has retained Isaacson, Miller, a national executive search firm, to assist in this search. Confidential inquiries, nominations, referrals, and resumes with cover letters should be sent in confidence to:
John Isaacson, President and Managing Director
Maggie Gilmore, Senior Associate
334 Boylston Street, Suite 500
Boston, MA 02116
3797@imsearch.com
Electronic submission of materials is strongly encouraged.
Beyond meeting fully its legal obligations for non-discrimination, Williams College is committed to building a diverse and inclusive community where members from all backgrounds can live, learn and thrive.
Download the entire Prospectus (PDF file)
topPresidential Search | Williams College | P.O. Box 422 | Williamstown, MA 01267
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