For Immediate Release Contact: Director, Public Relations (909) 621-8219 nina_mason@pitzer.edu Pitzer College Appoints Laura Skandera Trombley as Fifth President Claremont, Calif. -- Nov. 13, 2001 -- Pitzer College's Board of Trustees today announced its selection of Laura E. Skandera Trombley, chief academic officer at Coe College, a private liberal-arts college in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, to succeed Marilyn Chapin Massey as president beginning July 1, 2002. "Laura impressed all of us with her confidence, energy keen intelligence and deep commitment to the values of a liberal education," said Susan Pritzker, chair of Pitzer's Board of Trustees, in making the announcement. "She articulates a clear vision for Pitzer College's future and demonstrates a remarkable resonance with Pitzer's distinctive mission as a liberal-arts college. We look forward to Laura as a dynamic new president who will energize the community and lead the College along a path of bold imagination." Skandera Trombley, 41, who will be Pitzer's fifth president, serves as Coe's vice president for academic affairs and dean of faculty, supervising the faculty as well as the registrar, academic computer services, assessment, the college library and art galleries, and intercollegiate athletics. Like Pitzer, Coe College has been recognized by U.S. News and World Report as one of America's best national liberal-arts colleges. "Pitzer College is an extraordinary institution of higher learning and I am deeply honored to join the community," said Skandera Trombley. "The faculty, students, staff and trustees have all been most gracious and welcoming, and my family and I are looking forward to becoming part of the fabric of life at Pitzer and in the city of Claremont." Since joining Coe College in 1997, Skandera Trombley has ushered in remarkable growth and stability, hiring 33 percent of the tenure-track faculty, improving student retention and expanding the use of technology in teaching and learning on the campus. She also has played a key role in internationalizing the curriculum, increasing faculty development opportunities, supervising reaccreditation efforts and reorganizing the long-range planning process. "In her tenure at Coe, Skandera Trombley has demonstrated extraordinary leadership, particularly in the development and execution of 'The Coe Plan,' a distinctive co-curricular graduation requirement that puts emphasis on technology, leadership and academic practica," said Pritzker. "The plan has been recognized nationally as a model for liberal-arts institutions." According to Coe's web site, The Coe Plan helps students "draw a connection between [their] liberal arts classroom education with a practicum experience such as an internship, study- abroad term, or research experience ... through a process of reflection, evaluation and incorporation to create a coherent collegiate experience." Pritzker added: "Skandera Trombley's experience and involvement in fundraising at Coe will be particularly useful to Pitzer, which launched its first major fundraising drive -- a $40- million comprehensive campaign -- last April." Coe launched a similar campaign, aimed primarily at endowment building, in October 1999. According to Coe's web site, the College has already raised $42-million toward its $50-million goal. Skandera Trombley has been involved in every aspect of Coe's campaign from working with the president to set goals to cultivating major-gift prospects to making presentations to alumni and other constituencies. Prior to joining Coe, Skandera Trombley held several posts at the State University of New York at Potsdam, beginning as an assistant professor in the English department in 1990. After five years in the classroom, she became special assistant to the president and director of the Teaching, Tenure and Promotion Assistance Program (TCAP). In her last two years at SUNY Potsdam, Skandera Trombley spearheaded the design and implementation of a mid-year term for the institution as assistant provost. Also a noted Mark Twain scholar, Skandera Trombley has published three books, "Epistemology: Turning Points in the History of Poetic Knowledge" (1986), "Mark Twain in the Company of Women (1994)" and "Critical Essays on Maxine Hong Kingston" (1998). Her fourth book, "Constructing Mark Twain: New Directions in Scholarship," will be published in 2002. Skandera Trombley, who is president of the Mark Twain Circle of America, will appear in Ken Burns' documentary on Twain, a PBS special to air in January 2002. She also has an active scholarly interest in Chinese-American women writers and technology. This fall, she will be a guest editor of a special edition of Educational Technology titled "Knowing the Web." Skandera Trombley holds B.A. and M.A. degrees in English from Pepperdine University in Malibu, Calif., and a Ph.D. degree in English from the University of Southern California. Today's announcement concludes a yearlong national search conducted by a presidential search committee chaired by John N. Tierney, a member of Pitzer's Board of Trustees. Tierney is president and CEO of The DOCSI Corp. in Los Angeles. "Pitzer's search for its fifth president was easily the most inclusive search ever conducted at The Claremont Colleges and, very likely, in the United States," Tierney said. "Students, alumni, staff and faculty participated from the very beginning at every level of the search from the development of a description of the College and the specific qualities it would seek in a president through the actual selection process itself. Without this full participation, we never could have achieved this exciting result that will stand as living testimony to the founding vision of the transformative value of true participation that makes Pitzer the special place that it is. Pitzer is a wonderful college poised to take its place among the best of the best liberal-arts colleges." Skandera Trombley is married to Nelson Edmond Trombley, 54, an artist who works with "at risk" young people at the Success Center at Prairie High School in Cedar Rapids. The couple has one child, Nelson Edmond Trombley Jr., 5. Skandera Trombley will succeed Marilyn Chapin Massey, who announced her plans to retire last November. She will step down in June. In her decade as Pitzer's president, Massey guided the College from regional to national prominence. Her notable achievements include increasing the market value of the College's endowment from $27 million to nearly $50 million; expanding the campus with three architecturally noteworthy buildings; leading a comprehensive, strategic planning process to chart the College's future course; beginning a campus master planning process to determine current and future facility needs; dramatic improvements in admission selectivity; increasing the number of external studies programs run by Pitzer from two to 11, including the innovative Pitzer in Ontario program; major strides toward integrating new technology into the educational process; and significant successes in fundraising, particularly with philanthropic foundations. Before becoming Pitzer's president, Massey served as vice president for academic affairs at Marymount Manhattan College in New York City, where she was credited with revamping the curriculum and attracting new financial resources. She previously held administrative and teaching positions at the College of New Rochelle, Mundelein College and Harvard and Duke universities. Massey succeeded Frank Ellsworth, who served as president of Pitzer College from July 1, 1979, to June 30, 1991. Other Pitzer College presidents are Paul B. Ranslow (interim), July 1, 1991, to June 30, 1992; James B. Jamieson (interim), Oct. 1, 1978, to June 30, 1979; Robert H. Atwell, July 1, 1970, to Sept. 30, 1978; and John W. Atherton, July 1963 to June 1970. #### Founded in 1963, Pitzer College is a nationally ranked undergraduate college of the liberal arts and sciences. A member of The Claremont Colleges, Pitzer offers a distinctive approach to a liberal education by linking intellectual inquiry with interdisciplinary studies, cultural immersion, social responsibility and community involvement.