Peace Corps chief picked to lead Hobart and William Smith Colleges
Peace Corps chief picked to lead Hobart and William Smith Colleges
The Associated Press
6/2/99 12:58 AM
GENEVA, N.Y. (AP) -- President Clinton says Mark Gearan is perfect for the job as president of Hobart and William Smith Colleges: "He is gifted, humane, a leader and deeply committed to the education of young people."
Gearan, 42, director of the Peace Corps since August 1995 and previously White House director of communications, will take charge of the men's and women's colleges in this Finger Lakes town in late summer.
"I look forward to building on their great traditions of academic excellence, international studies and public service," he said Tuesday.
Gearan is credited with building bipartisan support in Congress for a Clinton initiative last year to expand the Peace Corps to 10,000 volunteers by the year 2003.
"I have relied on Mark Gearan's skills, wisdom and talents for many years," Clinton said. "He has rejuvenated the Peace Corps. ... He can be proud that the Peace Corps will soon have more volunteers serving overseas than at any time in a generation."
Gearan was Vice President Al Gore's campaign manager in the 1992 presidential campaign and press secretary in the presidential campaign of Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis. He became a White House deputy chief of staff, rising to director of communications and strategic planning.
About 1,800 undergraduates attend the two private schools. They share faculty and classrooms but each awards its own degrees, has its own dean and admissions office, student government and athletic programs.
Gearan will become the 26th president at Hobart, a men's college founded in 1822, and the 15th president at William Smith, a women's college started in 1908.
Charles Salisbury, chairman of the colleges' board of trustees, said Gearan's "strong and varied leadership experience makes him an ideal president, but his particular sensitivity to internationalism and service makes him the best possible president."
A native of Gardner, Mass., Gearan earned an undergraduate degree in government at Harvard University and a law degree at Georgetown University. He and his wife, Mary Herlihy Gearan, have two daughters.
Hersh, 56, who became president in 1991, said he was resigning to follow his wife, Judith Meyers, into her new post as executive director of the Child Health and Development Institute of Connecticut.
During his tenure, the colleges have nearly tripled their endowment from $37 million to $102 million.
