President's Biography
Laura Skandera Trombley became the fifth president of Pitzer College in 2002. Under her leadership, Pitzer College has, as she spoke of in her inaugural address, “come of age.” She is known by the Pitzer community for her extraordinarily high level of energy and devotion to the College. Through her support and with her careful shepherding, the institution’s faculty and student excellence has become widely recognized and its progressive ideals highly regarded.
Under her leadership, the academic and co-curricular programs have been enhanced with an infusion of research and awards funding for faculty and students and the establishment of several new academic centers and majors. The residential life program has been radically transformed with the construction of three new residence halls, and the existing buildings and grounds have been thoroughly revitalized. During her first year in office, President Trombley supported the faculty’s desire to implement an SAT-optional admission policy, which established Pitzer as a West Coast leader in adopting this practice. In her second year as President she secured the largest single-donor gift since the institution’s founding and, as a result, the College was able to complete its first comprehensive capital campaign over its goal and ahead of schedule. By the fifth year of her presidency, the College’s endowment had increased by 136 percent.
During her presidency, Pitzer College became the national leader in Fulbright Fellowships won by students and alumni. Since 2002, Pitzer College received more Fulbright Fellowships per 1000 students than any other college or university in the US.
President Trombley is a noted Mark Twain scholar and her most recent book on Twain, Mark Twain’s Other Woman: The Hidden Story of His Final Years, will be published by Knopf in March 2010. In 2002, she appeared in Ken Burns’s Mark Twain documentary, and as a graduate student she discovered the largest known cache of Mark Twain letters. President Trombley’s other books include Mark Twain in the Company of Women (1994), Constructing Mark Twain: New Directions in Scholarship (2002), Critical Essays on Maxine Hong Kingston (1998) and Epistemology: Turning Points in the History of Poetic Knowledge (1986) and she authored dozens of scholarly articles. She frequently speaks and publishes on issues affecting US higher education.
President Trombley received her PhD in English from the University of Southern California. While there, she was the Lester and Irene Finkelstein Fellow and received the Virginia Barbara Middleton Scholarship. She attended Pepperdine University at age 16 and, after graduating summa cum laude, continued there to earn her MA.
President Trombley is an elected member of the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce Board, the San Gabriel Chapter of the Young President’s Organization, the Organization of Women Executives and The Trusteeship. The is a member the Council on Foreign Relations Higher Education Working Group on Global Issues, the Chronicle of Higher Education/New York Times Higher Education Cabinet and of the Rotary Club of Claremont.
Previous to joining Pitzer College, President Trombley earned tenure in three years as an associate professor of English at SUNY Potsdam, and held several administrative posts, including supervisor of the Office of Faculty Scholarship and Grants, director of the Teaching, Tenure and Promotion Assistance Program, affirmative action officer, special assistant to the president, and assistant provost. In four more years, President Trombley was named full professor and dean of the faculty and vice president of academic affairs at Coe College.
President Trombley, her husband Nelson and young son Sparkey live with their dog, cat and turtles in Harvard House, the Pitzer College president’s residence.