Musical Chairs All Over Again: College Presidents Arrive, Depart, and Search for a New Job

Melissa Gilliam, who was in a “tight circle of future higher ed leaders” mentored by Robert Zimmer (who passed away in May), will be joining Boston University as its president. It was Zimmer who suggested she consider pivoting from research and medicine into higher education leadership and who also is credited with mentoring the “current presidents of Dartmouth, Caltech, Vanderbilt, Clark, and Colby College. And now Boston University.” If Rutgers University’s Senate had its way, the system’s president, Jonathan Holloway, would be departing. After more than an hour of discussion where “no one spoke in favor of Holloway,” the Senate, composed mostly of faculty members, voted 89 to 47 for a “no confidence” resolution. Reasons cited for a poor level of support for the president included “handling of employees’ demands and of their triple-union strike in the spring, the unexplained ouster of the Rutgers University at Newark chancellor, the merging of the Newark and New Brunswick medical schools, and a lack of dialogue with the University Senate.” However, according to a public statement by the university: “President Holloway continues to have the support of the university’s Board of Governors....The Board of Governors has the sole responsibility to appoint the president.” Sadly, Temple University lost its acting president, JoAnne A. Epps, in September. She fell ill during a memorial service at Philadelphia university and passed away later that day. Reverend John Jenkins, longtime president of the University of Notre Dame, is stepping down at the end of the academic year, with plans to return to teaching and ministry at the Roman Catholic institution. Notre Dame’s next president will be selected from among priests in the Congregation of Holy Cross. In a Florida Atlantic University presidential search, the Board of Governors has asked the state’s attorney general to weigh in on a survey its search firm was using to rank candidates. Apparently, the questionnaire may be in violation of the Sunshine State’s law of the same name.