Finding the Fifth: College Presidential Search Begins
The Greystone building sits atop the Marist green, a remnant of the campus’s previous life as the old Rosenlund Estate. Once a carriage house with a hayloft and a blacksmith shop, Greystone is now home to the college’s highest office: the office of the president. With President Dennis J. Murray’s second retirement impending, the search for Marist’s fifth president — and Greystone’s next occupant — is officially underway.
In a memorandum to students on Sept. 10, Ross Mauri ‘80, chair of the Board of Trustees, announced the formation of a 22-person presidential search committee. With assistance from Russell Reynolds Associates (RRA), a recognized global leadership advisory and search firm, the committee will begin its national search for Murray’s second successor. Mauri said the committee aims to have a new president in place by July 1, 2021.
The preliminary phases are already in motion, starting with gathering community input. Mauri invited all students to join a listening session on Thursday, Oct. 1, from 6-7 p.m. Alternatively, he encouraged students to complete a stakeholder survey or send an email to the committee through a contact form.
In the college’s nearly 75-year history as a four-year, chartered institution, just four men have assumed the president’s position. The average tenure for a college president in 2016 was 6.5 years, making Marist’s propensity for long-term presidencies somewhat of an oddity.
Each of the four presidents approached the role with diverse backgrounds and goals, and each irrevocably shaped the institution that stands at 3399 North Rd. today.
In the college’s nearly 75-year history as a four-year, chartered institution, just four men have assumed the president’s position. Now, the search for the college’s fifth president is underway. Illustration by Sydney Kysar
The Four Presidents: A History of Marist’s Leadership
The college’s history is rooted in the tradition of the Marist Brothers. Students need look no further than the largest freshman dorm on campus — named for Saint Marcellin Champagnat, founder of the Marist Brothers — or the ideals of the Marist Values Statement to recognize the Brothers’ influence.
The college began as a training school for Marist Brothers, offering college coursework and officially obtaining a four-year charter in 1946. Brother Paul Ambrose Fontaine became the first president of Marian College, Dr. John Ansley, director of Archives and Special Collections at Marist, said.
Dr. Linus Richard Foy, another Marist Brother, succeeded Brother Paul in 1958 at just 28 years old. Under his leadership, the college became Marist College in 1960 and admitted male lay students. From there, the college experienced a radical transformation and expansion — female students were admitted, first, to the evening division in 1966 and then welcomed in residence by 1969. Academic programs expanded, sports teams began to permeate campus life and the college’s relationship with IBM even started to emerge under Foy, Ansley said.
“Dr. Foy started modernizing the college. He was able to go beyond the infrastructure that Brother Paul was doing and he was adding academic programs, developing relationships with different companies and institutions with Marist,” Ansley said.
In 1969, the Marist College Educational Corporation assumed ownership of the college with an independent Board of Trustees, and the Brothers’ influence at the college became significantly more removed. Foy, himself, also broke away from the Brothers and even married. He remained at the college’s helm for another 10 years, and the college’s search for its third president commenced.
At this time, Dr. Dennis J. Murray was living and working in California with his wife, Marilyn, who was pregnant with their first child. He made a name for himself in higher education on the West Coast, assuming a vice presidential position at Whittier College.
Much like the recruiters presently searching for Murray’s second successor, an East Coast executive search firm contacted Murray about an opening for president of Marist College in Poughkeepsie, New York. He declined, but the firm insisted. Ultimately, Murray and Marilyn decided to take the trip to New York. He found the college dredged in financial issues with only a small, local undergraduate population. He ultimately accepted the position and became president in 1979 — the college’s first lay president — planning on to spend a brief three or four years Eastside.
Four decades later, the Murrays found a home in the Hudson Valley, and “D.J.M” left his mark on Marist.
Murray’s presidency brought about sweeping change for the college. In virtually every aspect, he said, the school increased in size and complexity. He oversaw Marist’s development from a local college to a nationally and internationally recognized institution, from under a hundred acres of land to now several hundred, from a Division 2 school to a Division 1 athletic program.
In 2016, Murray ended a nearly 40-year tenure as president in 2016 and bequeathed the office to David Yellen, a former dean and professor of law at the Loyola University Chicago School of Law. During his administration, Yellen announced a forthcoming medical school, oversaw the opening of a Marist location in midtown Manhattan and launched the first doctoral program in physical therapy.
Then, in June 2019, Yellen resigned, and Murray stepped in as interim president.
“Usually, you find presidents leaving after about three to five years, so to have administrators that dedicated to the college is remarkable,” Ansley said. “President Yellen leaving after three years … it was surprising to Marist, but when you look at other colleges, you realize, ‘Oh, that’s pretty standard.’”
Murray once again found himself in the old hayloft at the Greystone building as the college prepared for another search.
He’s known every president in the college’s history. After Brother Paul left Marist, he and Murray corresponded when he became president. In fact, Brother Paul spent most of the last years of his life living on campus after he fell ill while working in Africa. The two became good friends, but Murray said he never interfered. He gave the same praise to Foy.
“[Foy] was still around the first year or so, but to his credit — and I tried to do the same thing — he was very intent on letting me be president … He was around and he was available, but he believed, ‘I had my turn, now you go out and have yours.’ And for me, that worked well. Every now and then, I picked his brain on something,” Murray said.
In a similar spirit, Murray declined to comment on his hopes for the next president, emphasizing the independence and the aptitude of the presidential search committee.
The Fifth, and the College’s Future
Amid a global pandemic, a racial justice movement and a recession, the presidential search committee has been tasked with selecting the college’s next leader. The committee includes 12 members of the Board of Trustees, four faculty members, a dean, an alumnus, three administration members and one student. Mauri said the size and composition of this group better reflects the college community than the committee assembled in 2015, specifically in terms of gender and ethnicity.
In addition, Mauri said the committee is determined to consider a diverse pool of candidates and attested to RRA’s reputation for “placing candidates from a variety of backgrounds that are historically underrepresented in higher education.”
Student and alumni groups, like @redfoxes_againstracism, voiced their demands for a diverse new president. Through various listening sessions with different stakeholder groups, Mauri said the committee will gather crucial insight to create a position specification, which will guide the recruitment process scheduled to begin this fall.
Student Body President Roda Mohamed represents the sole student on the committee, which she calls a “heavy responsibility,” but one that she’s thrilled to take on. Like Mauri, Mohamed plans to seek student input through town halls to better represent the breadth of student perspectives.
“I think President Murray has done an exceptional job. We need someone who will continue that legacy — someone who is open, someone who is fast on their feet, someone who is willing to understand and hear the different perspectives that are coming on campus, someone who is aware of what’s happening around the world,” Mohamed said.
From the faculty cohort, Professor Sally Dwyer-McNulty commended Murray for moving the college forward during the pandemic and emphasized the need for a leader who can shape the course of the college and restructure operations as the pandemic and other significant events continue to evolve.
“Colleges are in a crisis. Their student debt is out of control, and so we have to make sure that our education remains affordable, that we continue to communicate our relevance, that we have a very public position in the region and especially in the community,” Dwyer-McNulty said. “I think that our president is going to have to be this very positive, very clear-thinking communicator, and communicate with all the different constituencies … and, of course, on top of that, has to be absolutely and very publicly — through hires and policies — committed to diversity.”
For Mohamed, the weight of this selection is apparent, and she said the person chosen to be Marist’s fifth president could shape the next five to 10 years of the college, if not longer:
“We need a leader who is able to delegate, motivate students to be part of the mission that the college has, but someone who has also done the work themselves.”