Biography

Curriculum vitae

Laura Skandera Trombley became the fifth president of Pitzer College 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, and 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 at 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.

Before joining Pitzer College, President Trombley was Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dean of Faculty at Coe College. Prior to that she was at the State University of New York in Potsdam where she was awarded early tenure as Associate Professor of English and held several administrative posts, including director of the Teaching, Tenure and Promotion Assistance Program and assistant provost.

President Trombley frequently speaks and publishes on issues affecting U.S. higher education and her academic scholarship on Mark Twain is internationally renowned. As a graduate student she discovered the largest known cache of Mark Twain letters and in 2002 appeared in Ken Burns’ documentary on Mark Twain. She has published dozens of scholarly articles and four books: Mark Twain in the Company of Women (1994), Constructing Mark Twain: New Directions if Scholarship (2002), Critical Essays on Maxine Hong Kingston (1998) and Epistemology: Turning Points in the History of Poetic Knowledge (1986). She received her Ph.D. in English from the University of Southern California, and her M.A. and B.A. from Pepperdine University.

The president and her husband Nelson and young son Sparkey live with their dog, cat and turtles several blocks from campus in the Pitzer president’s residence where they frequently host Pitzer events.

Curriculum vitae

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