Consistent with plans announced last spring, Kim Benston will conclude his presidential service June 30, 2019, and return to the classroom. A search for his successor will soon commence.
President Kim Benston has announced his intention to conclude his presidential tenure as planned on June 30, 2019. Benston began what was to be a two-year term as president back in 2015, and last spring, he and Haverford’s Board of Managers agreed to extend his term for two additional years.
"The Board has been extraordinarily grateful to Kim for his exceptional and effective service in this role," said Board Chair Rick White '81. "With a successful fundraising campaign in our wake and the completion of our ambitious strategic plan in view, Kim makes this decision in full confidence that Haverford is in a position of strength. He considers the timing ideal for us to begin looking to our next chapter. The lead time Kim has afforded us will enable a robust and inclusive presidential search while the community continues working under his leadership toward completion of the Plan for 2020 and advancement of the College’s mission on a number of other fronts."
The search for Benston's successor will soon be underway. The Board of Managers has charged its Nominations & Governance Committee to assemble a search committee to identify Haverford's 16th president.
The search committee will include:
nine members of the Board of Managers, including Managers nominated to the Board by the Corporation and the Alumni Association.
three members of the faculty.
two members of the student body.
two members of the staff.
one representative from Bryn Mawr College.
The goal is a search committee that represents the entire community and balances important dimensions of expertise, institutional knowledge, judgment, and diversity in its broadest sense. To that end, the Board’s Nominations & Governance Committee will work with the faculty, staff, and student representatives to the Board, and the Bryn Mawr Board of Trustees, to receive from each of the groups listed above their nominations for membership on the search committee. The Nominations & Governance Committee will then invite specific individuals from among those nominations to serve. The pragmatic necessities of a presidential search necessarily limit the size of this committee, which, while large, is purposefully smaller than past iterations. The committee will be assembled before the end of the semester, so they will be able to engage the community before the summer break.
The search committee will lead the process of identifying Haverford's next president and will be tasked with engaging the community's wisdom as it discerns the priorities that will inform the search. The committee will then make its recommendation to the Board of Managers, which is responsible for appointing Haverford’s president.
Benston—a renowned scholar whose interests include modern drama, African American literature and culture studies, the drama of Shakespeare and his contemporaries, performance studies, photographic history and theory, and critical animal studies—has been a beloved member of the Haverford faculty since 1984 and plans to return to the classroom. Prior to his presidential term, he served as provost for three years, chaired the English Department, directed the Africana Studies Program, and served two terms as director of the John B. Hurford '60 Center for the Arts and Humanities.
