Claremont Graduate University Interim President Robert Schult to Step Down, Executive Vice President and Provost Jacob Adams Appointed Interim
Claremont, Calif. (PRWEB) December 08, 2016 -- Robert Schult, president of Claremont Graduate University and former president and chief operating officer of Nestlé USA and managing director at VMG Partners, announced today that he will be stepping down as president and returning to the university’s Board of Trustees, where he has served since 2011.
CGU has undertaken a reorganization of its administration and academic structure to better position itself to meet the needs of students in the changing environment of graduate education. In June 2015, when the board faced the responsibility of selecting a new president, it determined that CGU would be best served by having a three-year transition period before the selection of a new career president, during which time the university could complete its administrative, advancement, and academic reorganization. The board believed that after completion of the reorganization, CGU would be in a better position to define the kind of president it should have to lead it into the future.
Schult agreed to leave the board and serve as president for up to three years to see through the reorganization. Schult and the management team at CGU successfully completed the administrative phase of the reorganization well ahead of schedule, including implementing measures to keep CGU on sound financial footing and rebuilding the university’s advancement infrastructure.
Since the primary reorganization tasks now remaining are in the areas of academic and programmatic restructuring, Schult has decided that it would be in the best interest of CGU for him to resign as president as of December 31, 2016, in order to allow the board to appoint Jacob Adams, CGU’s current executive vice president and provost, as interim president and Patricia Easton, CGU’s current vice president and former dean of the School of Arts & Humanities, as executive vice president and provost for the remaining 18 months of the three-year transition period. This transition enables CGU to leverage Adams’s and Easton’s extensive academic experience to guide the university through the next phase of its restructuring and for Adams to spend a majority of his time raising new funds to support the university’s programs and students.
Beginning in the next academic year, the board will put in place the process by which a new president will be selected to begin a full term and assume administrative and fundraising leadership of CGU on July 1, 2018. Both the board and the management team have thanked Schult for his effective efforts in leading the administrative and financial phase of CGU’s reorganization.
Nicholas Owchar, Claremont Graduate University, http://www.cgu.edu, +1 909-621-8396, [email protected]
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