Kenyon's Board of Trustees has initiated a search for the College's 20th president. The new president will succeed Sean M. Decatur, who will step down after nearly a decade as Kenyon’s president to assume the presidency of the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. Provost Jeff Bowman, who has served as acting president since July 2022, will continue in that role until a successor is named.
The Board of Trustees has engaged Storbeck Search to assist with the national search and appointed a presidential search committee with faculty, staff, student alumni and trustee representatives.
Updates regarding the search will be posted on this website and shared with the campus community by email.
Nominations and Applications
For best consideration, please send all nominations and applications to KenyonPresident@Community Input
The search for Kenyon’s 20th president will be conducted with careful attention to and significant input from the College’s many stakeholders. The search committee will provide community members with a variety of opportunities to share views on qualities to seek in candidates and to nominate individuals. Recent opportunities include:
- Campus forum and stakeholder meetings. The search committee visited campus in mid-January to gather community input. They hosted a campus forum and met with members of the executive committee of the faculty, Student Council, Staff Council and Senior Staff. More than 100 people participated.
- Survey. Over 1,500 members of the Kenyon community provided input via an online survey: 1,004 alumni, 272 parents, 212 faculty and staff, 138 students, and 71 friends, neighbors and other supporters.
- Email the search committee. Offer additional feedback at presidentialsearch@kenyon.edu.
Presidential Search Committee
The presidential search committee includes representatives from the Board of Trustees, the faculty, the administrative staff, the student body and the alumni and parent community — selected following the protocol of recent Kenyon presidential searches. Trustee Aileen C. Hefferren ’88 H’12, will serve as chair, assisted by David Horvitz ’74, trustee and committee vice chair. Chief of Staff Susan Morse will serve as the campus coordinator for the search.
Aileen C. Hefferren ’88 H’12
Search Committee Chair
Trustee, New York, NY
David W. Horvitz ’74, H’98
Search Committee Vice-Chair
Trustee, Fort Lauderdale, FL
Ubongabasi Asuquo ’23
Student, Akwa-Ibom, Nigeria
Rocco Danese ’23
Student, Brooklyn, NY
Brackett B. Denniston III ’69
Trustee, Naples, FL
Samie Falvey ’96
Former alumni trustee, Los Angeles, CA
Erika Farfan
Associate Vice President, Institutional Research
Elisabetta Ghisini P’24
Trustee, San Francisco, CA
Christopher M. Gillen
Professor of Biology
Pamela Feitler Hoehn-Saric ’80 P’10, ’14
Trustee, Gibson Island, MD
Benita Jackson P’18
Trustee, Columbus, OH
James Jackson
Senior Director of Campus Life
Joseph E. Lipscomb ’87 P’19
Trustee, Washington, DC
Pashmina Murthy
Associate Professor of English
D. Matthew Voorhees ’95
Trustee, Washington, DC
Susan L. Morse
Search Coordinator
Chief of Staff