President of Washington College | |
---|---|
Incumbent Michael J. Sosulski since 2022 | |
Residence | Hynson-Ringgold House |
Appointer | Washington College Board of Visitors and Governors |
Inaugural holder | William Smith |
Formation | 1782 |
Website | Office of the President |
Washington College is a private liberal arts college in Chestertown, Maryland, which is on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. The college was founded in 1782 by William Smith, but is the successor institution to the earlier Kent County Free School, which was founded in 1732. [1] From the college's founding until 1922 the executive officer of the college was known as the principal of the college; subsequently, the executive officer is the president of the college. [2] [lower-alpha 1] While the title changed, the office is considered to be the same and officeholders who were referred to as principals by their contemporaries are now referred to as presidents. [lower-alpha 2] Before the title change in 1922, the president of Washington College was the president of the Board of Visitors and Governors; since 1922, that position is the chair of the Board of Visitors and Governors. [2]
The president of Washington College is appointed by the Board of Visitors and Governors and serves at the pleasure of the board. [3] They are the chief executive officer and chief spokesperson of the college. As a part of their role, they are a voting member of the college's faculty and ex officio member of the Board of Visitors and Governors. There is no fixed compensation or pay scale for the position; each president negotiates a contract independently with the board. [3] As a part of the position's compensation, the President of Washington College is given access to the Hynson-Ringgold House, which has been the official residence of the Washington College president since 1944. [4]
At least 31 people have been the president of Washington College since 1782, four of whom have been interim presidents. [lower-alpha 3] Of the 31 presidents only one, Joseph McLain, was an alumnus of the college and only one, Sheila Bair, was a woman. The presidents of the college have been drawn from a variety of areas including religion, military service, governmental service, and academia. Six Washington College presidents were ordained in the Episcopal Church or the Methodist Protestant Church before their term. Several were also the rector of Emanuel Parish in Chestertown concurrent to their term as president. Washington College presidents have come from many parts of public life. Two were engaged in military service before their term and four were in public service. A singular president, Kurt M. Landgraf, was working in the private sector before his term. Most of the remaining presidents were academics before becoming president of the college. Three were presidents of other colleges, eight were academic administrators, five were faculty members at other colleges, and three were faculty members at Washington College before their terms.
# | Photo | Name | Term begin | Term end | Previous experience | Notes | Ref(s) |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | William Smith | 1782 | 1789 | Priest in the Episcopal Church Provost of the Academy and College of Philadelphia | Founder of Washington College and St. John's College. | [5] | |
2 | Colin Ferguson | 1792 | 1805 | Priest in the Episcopal Church Professor of Languages, Mathematics, and Natural Philosophy at Washington College | [6] | ||
– | – | – | 1805 | 1813 | – | The name of the principal between 1805 and 1813 is unknown. | [7] |
3 | Hugh McGuire | 1813 | 1815 | Teacher at St. John's College [lower-alpha 4] | [8] | ||
4 | Joab G. Cooper | 1816 | 1817 | Priest in the Episcopal Church | [9] | ||
– [lower-alpha 5] | Gerard E. Stack | 1817 | 1818 | Temporary professor of Greek and Latin at Dickinson College | [10] [11] [12] | ||
5 | Francis Waters | 1818 | 1823 | Minister in the Methodist Protestant Church | Also the 9th Principal of Washington College | [13] | |
6 | Timothy Clowes | 1823 | 1829 | Priest in the Episcopal Church | [14] | ||
7 | Peter Clark | 1829 | 1832 | "spent three years at Dartmouth College" | [15] [16] | ||
8 | Richard W. Ringgold | 1832 | 1854 | Member of the Maryland House of Delegates | [17] | ||
9 | Francis Waters | 1854 | 1860 | Minister in the Methodist Protestant Church | Also the 5th Principal of Washington College | [18] | |
10 | Andrew J. Sutton | 1860 | 1867 | Priest in the Episcopal Church Professor of Ancient and Modern Languages at Washington College | [19] | ||
11 | Robert C. Berkeley | 1867 | 1873 | Served in the Confederate Army as a Quartermaster Sergeant in Longstreet's Corps | [20] | ||
12 | William J. Rivers | 1873 | 1887 | Professor of Greek at the University of South Carolina | [21] [22] | ||
13 | Thomas N. Williams | 1887 | 1889 | Superintendent of Delaware Public Schools | [23] [24] | ||
14 | Charles W. Reid | 1889 | 1903 | Professor of Greek and German at St. John's College | [25] [26] | ||
15 | James W. Cain | 1903 | 1918 | Professor of English and Political Economy at St. John's College | [27] | ||
16 | Clarence P. Gould | 1919 | 1923 | Professor of History at College of Wooster | The title of the chief executive of Washington College changed from Principal to President in 1922 | [28] | |
17 | Paul E. Titsworth | 1923 | 1933 | Dean of the College of Liberal Arts at Alfred University | [29] | ||
18 | Gilbert W. Mead | 1933 | 1949 | Dean of Birmingham–Southern College | [30] | ||
– [lower-alpha 6] | Fredrick G. Livingood | 1949 | 1950 | Dean of Washington College and Professor of Education at Washington College | [31] | ||
19 | Daniel Z. Gibson | 1950 | 1970 | Dean of Franklin & Marshall College | [32] | ||
20 | Charles J. Merdinger | 1970 | 1973 | Commanding Officer of the Western Division of the Naval Facilities Engineering Command | [33] | ||
21 | Joseph McLain | 1973 | 1981 | Professor of Chemistry at Washington College | Only alumnus of Washington College to become president. | [34] | |
– | Garry E. Clarke | 1981 | 1982 | Dean of Washington College and a professor of Music at Washington College | [35] | ||
22 | Douglass Cater | 1982 | 1990 | Vice Chairman of the London Observer Special Assistant to Lyndon B. Johnson | [36] | ||
23 | Charles H. Trout | 1990 | 1995 | Provost of Colgate University | [37] | ||
24 | John S. Toll | 1995 | 2004 | President of Stony Brook University Chancellor of the University System of Maryland | [38] | ||
25 | Baird Tipson | 2004 | 2010 | President of Wittenberg University President of Gettysburg College | [39] | ||
26 | Mitchell Reiss | 2010 | 2014 | United States Special Envoy for Northern Ireland | [39] [40] | ||
– | Jay Griswold | 2014 | 2015 | Chair of the Washington College Board of Visitors and Governors | [41] | ||
27 | Sheila Bair | 2015 | 2017 | Chair of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation | [42] | ||
28 | Kurt M. Landgraf | 2017 | 2020 | CEO of DuPont Member of the New Jersey Commission on Higher Education | [43] [44] | ||
– | Wayne B. Powell | 2020 | 2021 | President of Lenoir-Rhyne University | [45] | ||
29 | Michael J. Sosulski | 2021 | Provost of Wofford College | Current officeholder | [46] |
Principal of Washington College • Acting Principal of Washington College • President of Washington College • Acting President of Washington College
Kent County is a county located in the U.S. state of Maryland. As of the 2020 census, its population was 19,198, making it the least populous county in Maryland. Its county seat is Chestertown. The county was named for the county of Kent in England.
Chestertown is a town in Kent County, Maryland, United States. The population was 5,252 as of the 2010 census. It is the county seat of Kent County.
Washington College is a private liberal arts college in Chestertown, Maryland. Maryland granted Washington College its charter in 1782. George Washington supported the founding of the college by consenting to have the "College at Chester" named in his honor, through generous financial support, and through service on the college's Board of Visitors and Governors. Washington College is the 10th-oldest college in the United States and was the first college chartered after American independence. The school became coeducational in 1891.
Frank Brown, a member of the United States Democratic Party, was the 42nd Governor of Maryland in the United States from 1892 to 1896. He also served as a member of the Maryland House of Delegates from 1876 to 1878.
Baltimore City College, known colloquially as City, City College, and B.C.C., is a college preparatory school with a liberal arts focus and selective admissions criteria located in Baltimore, Maryland. Opened in October 1839, B.C.C. is the third-oldest active public high school in the United States. City College is a public exam school and an International Baccalaureate World School at which students in the ninth and tenth grades participate in the IB Middle Years Programme while students in the eleventh and twelfth grades participate in the IB Diploma Programme.
The Baltimore Polytechnic Institute, colloquially referred to as BPI, Poly, and The Institute, is a U.S. public high school founded in 1883. Established as an all-male manual trade / vocational school by the Baltimore City Council and the Baltimore City Public Schools, it is now a coeducational academic institution that emphasizes sciences, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). It is located on a 53-acre (21 ha) tract of land in North Baltimore on the east bank of the Jones Falls stream. BPI and the adjacent Western High School are located on the same campus.
James Alfred Pearce was an American politician. He was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, representing the second district of Maryland from 1835 to 1839 and 1841 to 1843. He later served as a U.S. Senator from Maryland from 1843 until his death in 1862.
William English "Brit" Kirwan is an American university administrator and mathematician who is chancellor emeritus of the University System of Maryland (USM) and professor emeritus of mathematics at the University of Maryland, College Park. Most recently, Kirwan served as chancellor of USM from 2002 to 2015. Previously, Kirwan worked at the University of Maryland, College Park from the 1960s to 1990s as a professor, administrator, and eventually president and was president of the Ohio State University from 1998 to 2002.
The history of The Baltimore City College began in March 1839, when the City Council of Baltimore, Maryland, passed a resolution mandating the creation of a male high school with a focus on the study of English and classical literature. "The High School" was opened later in the same year on October 20, with 46 pupils under the direction of Professor Nathan C. Brooks,(1809-1898), a local noted classical educator and poet, who became the first principal of a new type of higher institution in the developing public education system in the city begun in 1829. It is now considered to be the third oldest public high school / secondary school in the nation. In 1850, the Baltimore City Council granted the school, then known as the "Central High School of Baltimore", the authority to present its graduates with certificates of completion. An effort to expand that academic power and allow the then named "Central High School of Baltimore" to confer Bachelor of Arts degrees began following the Civil War in 1865, and continued the following year with the renaming of the institution as "The Baltimore City College", which it still holds to this day, with also the retitling of its chief academic officer from "principal" to "president", along with an increase in the number of years of its course of study and the expansion of its courses. However, despite this early elevation effort, it ended at that brief period unsuccessfully in 1869, although the B.C.C. continued for a number of years as a hybrid public high school and early form of junior college which did not fully appear in America in different form until the beginning of the 20th century. Very often the elaborate decorative fancy engraved graduation diploma from the B.C.C. in the late 19th and early 20th centuries was accepted by many other colleges and universities entitling City graduates to enter upper-division schools at the sophomore year,.
Francis G. Waters, D.D., LL.D., was a Methodist minister from Baltimore, Maryland, U.S., and a founding member of the Methodist Protestant Church. He was elected as the first president of the church on November 2, 1830, and presided over the general convention, in which the church's constitution was adopted. From 1849 to 1853 Waters served as the second principal of Baltimore City College. He was selected as president of Madison College in Uniontown, Pennsylvania, in summer 1853 but left the institution later that fall because of family illness. He also served twice as the Principal of Washington College in Chestertown, Maryland.
Chestertown Historic District is a historic district in Chestertown, Maryland. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places and designated a National Historic Landmark in 1970, and its area was increased in 1984. The town on the Chester River, became the chief port for tobacco and wheat on the Eastern Shore of Maryland between 1750 and 1790. The port declined thereafter, as Baltimore became the major port for such activity. In consequence, Chestertown acquired a collection of more than fifty Georgian style town houses. The 18th-century residential area survived without harm a 1910 fire that destroyed the central business district of Chestertown.
The Sergeant First Class John H. Newnam Armory, also known as the Chestertown Armory, is a former National Guard armory built in 1931 and located in Chestertown, Kent County, Maryland, United States. From 1932 until 2005 it housed various formations from the Maryland Army National Guard. It also was the home of sporting and community events. After the 115th Infantry Regiment was merged into the 175th Infantry Regiment in 2005, the armory was declared to be surplus by the state of Maryland. The building was transferred to Washington College in 2013. Since then, it has stood vacant. The college is investigating the possibility of turning it into a bed and breakfast.
Old Byrd Stadium, also known as Byrd Stadium or Byrd Field and nicknamed "the Byrd Cage", was the home stadium for the University of Maryland from 1923 until 1947. It was located in College Park, Maryland, east of Baltimore Avenue on the site of the school's present-day fraternity row. The seating capacity for the stadium was 5,000.
Jay A. Jacobs is an American politician from the Republican Party who is a member of the Maryland House of Delegates, representing the 36th district since 2011.
The 2018 Maryland gubernatorial election was held on November 6, 2018. The date included the election of the governor, lieutenant governor, and all members of the Maryland General Assembly. Incumbent governor Larry Hogan and Lieutenant Governor Boyd Rutherford, both Republicans, were re-elected to a second term against Democrat Ben Jealous, the former NAACP CEO, and his running mate Susan Turnbull. This was one of eight Republican-held governorships up for election in a state carried by Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election.
Steven James Arentz is an American politician from the Republican Party who is a member of the Maryland House of Delegates representing the 36th district since 2013. He was previously the president of the Queen Anne's County Board of Commissioners from 2010 to 2013.
The Hynson–Ringgold House, sometimes known as The Abbey, is the official residence of the president of Washington College. The building is in the Georgian style and is made entirely out of brick. In the rear of the building there is a large enclosed garden. It sits on the corner of Cannon Street and Water Street in Chestertown, Maryland.
Joseph Howard McLain was an American chemist. He was a professor at Washington College and became college president. He is best known for his expertise in solid state chemistry and pyrotechnics. He held 30 patents, including for smoke grenades, underwater torches, and flares.
Daniel Zachary Gibson was an American academic and academic administrator. He served in various roles at Cincinnati Conservatory of Music, The Citadel, Franklin and Marshall College, Washington College, and Salisbury University. During World War II, Gibson served as an officer in the United States Naval Reserve.