Today, Carleton named its eleventh president: Steven Poskanzer, J.D., the current president of the State University of New York at New Paltz. The College’s search for the new president was fast, but very effective, and everyone seems to be immediately pleased with the choice.
At a short event this afternoon – one which was attended by a majority of faculty and staff and a good chunk of the student population – Poskanzer gave a nice speech that (of course) hit all the right notes. I was struck by the number of emotional references he made – “bottom of my heart,” “very inspiring,” “moving,” and so forth – and by the careful way he mentioned staff as well as faculty and students. Both were nice touches.
This set of video clips offers a good sense of Poskanzer as a speaker and shows that he assembled a very accurate sense of the College through the search process. I’m sad to see our current, retiring president leave, but I think Poskanzer looks like the right guy for the job.
John was happy to see he came from a SUNY school.