EDITOR’S NOTE: This story is featured in the Fall 2024 edition of The Tartan magazine. Read more from The Tartan at alma.edu/tartan.
By Jeff Abernathy
In the past I’ve used these pages to discuss some of the headwinds higher education is facing. Indeed, not just at Alma College, but across the country, institutions of higher learning are facing myriad challenges that can pose a threat to their future growth — and in some extreme cases, their survival.
This issue of The Tartan is dedicated to some of the creative and innovative ways our campus community is working to navigate those headwinds. For example, I’m so proud of the work of our athletics department, led by Vice President and Director of Athletics Sarah Dehring. As you’ll read about, athletics provides our students — an incredible number of them, now, with more than 70 percent of our first-year students participating — with so much that they are able to use and become successful Scots.
I’m also excited for you to see the advancements that have been made in our work as it relates to international enrollment, graduate education and student retention. Such efforts are key to ensuring the long-term viability of Alma College now and into the future, so that generations of Scots can have the same opportunities for deep and impactful relationships to form, for years to come.
We also use this edition of The Tartan to pay tribute to some very special people. We were so pleased earlier this year to honor Dorothy “Dottie” Johnson as the inaugural winner of the Alma College Lynne Sherwood Women’s Leadership Award. Dottie has mentored women leaders throughout her career and been a great friend to Alma College through the years.
Lynne Sherwood, as many of you know, served on the Alma College Board of Trustees for more than a decade, from 2002-16. She was one of the most incredible people I’ve ever met: One of only eight of the first women admitted to the Master of Business Administration program at Harvard Business School in 1963, she went on to have a distinguished career at Goldman Sachs for 35 years, at a time when few women worked in those roles. Sadly, she passed away in 2016, but made an incredible mark on the world. It was an absolute gift to honor her in this way.
Serving as Alma’s president has been a great privilege. I’m so proud of this community and all we have accomplished together. In April, I announced my intent to step down as president in June 2025. Fifteen years is a very long presidency these days, and I believe the time is right for a new leader for the college. I have always planned to end my career as I began it, in the role of English professor, and I look forward to teaching at Alma in the years ahead.
Erika Powers Appelt, a member of the Class of 1991 and vice chair of the Board of Trustees, has taken the lead in finding Alma’s 14th president. On the opposite page, Erika discusses the processes that are going into that search, and why they are important. She will continue to communicate directly with the campus community as Alma’s 14th president is named.
— Jeff
