News

Presidential search proceeds in private

In print | February 12, 2009

The Presidential Search Committee is “very much on track” in the process of selecting a new President of Swarthmore College, according to Vice President Maurice Eldridge ’61. The committee is currently reviewing the references of the candidates that remain in consideration for the job.

While the committee is unable to give any specific information about any of the candidates — given that it is “operating under conditions that require an extremely firm commitment to the confidentiality expected by serious candidates,” according to Eldridge — the committee is “confident that each of them would make an excellent next president for Swarthmore,” Eldridge said in an e-mail.

In general, searches for positions of this type are conducted very carefully, with an eye on privacy, given that most candidates for such a job currently hold high-profile positions at other institutions. “While this constraint grates on the committee they accept its necessity for maintaining a really invested pool of high quality applicants. It is working,” Eldridge said.

The Presidential Search Committee was formed on June 4, 2008 after President Bloom announced on May 9 that he would be leaving Swarthmore. Barbara W. Mather ’65, the chair of the Board of Managers, named the 11 members of the committee, consisting of four members of the Board of Managers, three faculty representatives, two current students, a staff representative and an alumni representative.

On June 26, it was announced that the Search Committee will work with Storbeck/Pimentel & Associates, “a minority- and female-owned retained executive search firm specializing in providing executive recruitment services to colleges, universities, independent schools and not-for-profit organizations,” according to the Presidential Search Committee website.