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CONNECTING		Special Report: Trinity College names its 19th President,  Richard H. Hersh, Ed.D.
		A passionate and outspoken advocate for the liberal arts

Richard H. Hersh, Ed.D., former president of Hobart and William Smith Colleges and senior adviser to the Christian A. Johnson Endeavor Foundation and the Council for Aid to Education, was elected on Friday, January 25, by the Trinity College Board of Trustees as Trinity’s 19th president. Hersh will succeed former president Evan Dobelle, who resigned in July 2001 to become president of the University of Hawaii.

“I am honored to be invited to join one of the very best liberal arts colleges in the nation and one that is without doubt a college on the move,” says Hersh. Currently director of the Value-Added Assessment Initiative, a national project to assess student learning in liberal arts programs across the country, and former consultant to the Learning Corridor, Hersh says “I am impressed both by Trinity’s commitment to the classical values of education and the inextricable connection that it has made between liberal learning and urban and civic life.”

A nationwide search

Hersh was selected from over 150 candidates with the enthusiastic recommendation of a 15-member search committee composed of trustees, faculty members, students, and staff.

“A highly respected scholar of teaching, champion of liberal arts education and academic excellence, and a proven community leader, Dr. Hersh is clearly the ideal person to lead Trinity College to its next level of achievement and distinction,” says Thomas S. Johnson, chairman of the Board of Trustees and of the search committee.

During his eight-year tenure as president of Hobart and William Smith, Hersh led the most successful fund-raising campaign in the history of the Colleges, tripling their endowment and resulting in the opening of new library, biology/chemistry, and women’s athletic facilities. 

A champion of the liberal arts

A passionate and outspoken advocate for the liberal arts, Hersh teamed up with noted public opinion pollster Daniel Yankelovich to conduct a nationwide survey of parents, college-bound students, professors, CEOs, and human resources professionals to gauge the overall perception of the value of a liberal arts education. Hersh says he found that, while CEOs of Fortune 1000 companies held liberal arts education in high regard, parents, college-bound students, and even high school teachers had a superficial understanding of the value of a liberal arts education. This work culminated in a widely publicized article, “Intentions and Percep-tions: A National Survey of Public Attitudes Towards Liberal Arts Education,” in the March/April 1997 issue of CHANGE magazine. Hersh says that, while all of the groups polled valued essentially the same skills that are central to the liberal arts, some of the groups were not immediately aware that the qualities they sought in a “practical” college education were hallmarks of small liberal arts colleges.

“The job of a small liberal arts college is to explain what it does in language that helps parents understand that it’s worth the investment to give their kids the education they want for them and that they probably can’t get at a big school,” Hersh says. “If you want your student to get a ‘practical education,’ the most practical one you can get in the 21st century comes from small liberal arts colleges.”

Hersh plans to bring this expertise and a hands-on approach to the Trinity community when he moves onto campus in early April—a change in lifestyle he predicts will be near idyllic. Hersh, who has been described as a man who often has three ideas even before he sits down to breakfast, says, “We’re all privileged to be on this campus. To me, these places are really temples of talent. You create sparks and you watch people grow. What’s better than that?”

While president at Hobart and William Smith, Hersh was known for regularly attending and participating in a wide array of campus functions, including a student Halloween party—in costume. He also cites going to student performances and inviting students to his house to cook meals with him as two of his favorite leisure activities.

A member of the 1966 U.S. Rowing Team, Hersh still avidly enjoys the sport and draws excitement from this competitive athletic background when talking about Trinity’s increasingly prominent place among the nation’s top liberal arts colleges.               

Hersh resigned from Hobart and William Smith in July 1999 in order to enable his wife, Judith C. Meyers, Ph.D., to accept a position as executive director of the Child Health and Development Institute of Connecticut.

A clinical psychologist, Dr. Meyers is known for her professional and public policy work related to improving service systems and health outcomes for children. She was recently appointed as president of the Children’s Fund of Connecticut—a public charitable foundation that uses its resources as a catalyst for improving community-based primary and preventive health care for children, primarily those who are underserved. She will also continue to serve as president and CEO of the institute.

A breadth and depth of academic experience

Prior to assuming the Hobart and William Smith presidency in 1991, Hersh was vice president for research at the University of Oregon, vice president for academic affairs at the University of New Hampshire, and vice president for academic affairs and provost at Drake University, Des Moines, Iowa. Earlier, he served as visiting professor and director of the Center for Moral Development at Harvard University and, concurrently, as visiting professor and director of the Moral Education Project at the Ontario Institute for Studies on Education at the University of Toronto.

As a college student, Hersh was keenly aware of the value of a liberal arts education. He enrolled in a special five-year program at Syracuse University that not only awarded students an engineering degree, but also a liberal arts degree.

 “Even back then, I had been taught to believe in the importance of a liberal arts education,” Hersh says.

Students Davis Albohm ’02, Allendale, N.J., and Laura Rand ’03, Scarsdale, N.Y., joined faculty, administrative staff, and trustee search committee members in recognizing Dr. Hersh as an outstanding choice at the announcement of Hersh’s presidency last month.

“Given his vast experience as a past college president, not to mention his interest and enthusiasm regarding Trinity’s students, it is clear that he will thrive here and will work closely with the students,” says Albohm.

Hersh says that one of his first objectives when he takes office in April will be to do a lot of listening and to begin to synthesize Trinity’s existing strengths to create a special identity for Trinity.

Says Hersh, “I don’t come in with a fixed vision, but I do come in with certain biases. One of them is that I want to be part of the best institution of its kind in the world. For me, it’s about creating the most powerful and efficacious educational institution, where students really do gain all the things we make promises about in college catalogs. That’s the reason we’re here—to do that in a way that everybody in the country recognizes as a hallmark.

 “Trinity should be a benchmark school. When people think of the best possible liberal arts education in America, the first name that should pop into their heads is Trinity.”

-- Michael Bradley