M. Lee Pelton
M. Lee Pelton, president of Willamette University and a former dean at Colgate University and Dartmouth College, has been named the 12th president of Emerson College. He will assume office July 1, 2011.
Pelton will succeed Jacqueline W. Liebergott, who established Emerson’s new campus on Boston Common and thereby revitalized the city’s historic theater district. Liebergott became president in 1993 and announced her intention to step down last December.
Pelton’s appointment was announced last week by Peter Meade, chair of the Emerson Board of Trustees, who described Pelton as “a dynamic leader with an impressive record of accomplishment in higher education.”
Pelton is a magna cum laude graduate of Wichita State University and holds a Ph.D. in English from Harvard University, where he taught and served as Senior Tutor at Winthrop House. He has written extensively on higher education and is a highly sought after speaker on education, diversity and the liberal arts.
“I am looking forward to returning to a city I have always loved, to begin what I hope will be a long and productive association with another distinctive, cutting-edge and mission-driven college,” Pelton said.
