Paving the Way for the Future
Heartfelt thanks to all alumni, parents and friends of the University who made 2006-2007 quite possibly the most successful year ever.

Lawrence J. Winston ’60
Chair, St. Lawrence University Board of Trustees

The annual Report of Appreciation is an occasion for us all to reflect on the generosity and commitment of Laurentians everywhere.  This issue offers us that same opportunity, and I begin with heartfelt thanks to all alumni, parents and friends of the University who made 2006-2007 quite possibly the most successful year ever.  As your chair of the Board of Trustees, I am humbly indebted to you for your conviction that St. Lawrence is a place worthy of your devotion, your gifts and your faith.  Thank you.
I wish to use this page to call out early thanks to two Laurentians, and to apprise all who care about St. Lawrence that we are beginning an orderly and transparent leadership transition.

President Daniel F. Sullivan in a variety of venues for several months has spoken informally, but with characteristic candor, about his plans to retire on June 30, 2009.  On October 10, I shared with the campus community that that is indeed his intention in a plan that he and we on the Board of Trustees had been discussing for some months.  Therefore, I’d like to communicate the appreciation we as the Board of Trustees feel for Dan and Ann Sullivan’s immeasurable contributions to the University, and the plan for identifying the next St. Lawrence president.

As you know, Dan Sullivan began his tenure as our president—president of his own alma mater—on July 1, 1996.  In recent years, trustees have come to call this past decade the “St. Lawrence Renaissance” because, working together, we truly have brought great new life to this place we love so much.  He’s the first person among us to see and articulate the goals and challenges we still have, but what others see is 11 years of transforming accomplishment.

Dan’s goal always has been to make the student experience as academically demanding, as inspiring, as serious of purpose, as the very best students would expect of us while also focusing holistically on the full residential and co-curricular student experience and its impact on students’ overall development.  His work with every constituency group has kept students and their education as the central focus. He has urged his colleagues on the faculty and staff to consider their work as a vocation, with the dedication, the focus and the energy that the word “vocation” implies.  Ann and Dan Sullivan together have themselves been dedicated, focused and tirelessly energetic in their vocation with us. Their home has become a place of real community, and their travels have brought them to Laurentians throughout the world.  As a team, there has been none better and both deserve our deepest thanks. 

There will, of course, be a time to be more detailed about all of this as we get closer to an actual transition, and there is work to do to fill big shoes.  So let me describe for you the major features of the search process we will undertake, a first communication of many in what I and the board intend to be an inclusive process.

Trustee Barry Phelps ’69 has agreed to chair the Search Committee, and I express my thanks to him for what will be a very important and intensive assignment.  The Search Committee will include faculty, administrators, students and alumni. We plan to have committee formed in the spring semester.
We will work with a professional search consultant to build the pool of candidates; the work of the consultant and search committee will ramp up to full effort during the spring 2008 semester.  By the middle or end of the fall 2008 semester the committee will narrow its focus to one or more finalists who will visit campus for an intensive engagement with us. 

It’s our plan for the board to name a new president in the late fall of 2008 or early 2009, and President Sullivan will work with his successor, and with my own successor as chair of the board, Donald Rose ’64, to achieve a smooth and effective June 30, 2009, transition. Please know that we will keep you apprised as the search progresses.

Please join the Board of Trustees, and all Laurentians, in this first expression of gratitude to Dan and Ann Sullivan.  May I close by saying the greatest tribute that any one us can pay to them for their years of dedication will be our abiding commitment to St. Lawrence, and our pledge to work with the University’s faculty and leadership in the next decade to continue the forward momentum that the Sullivans have inspired.

Assembled in the Student Center are the University’s trustees. From left to right, seated, are Joseph P. Richardson ’63, Katy B. MacKay ’70, Richard Young ’40 (emeritus), President Daniel F. Sullivan ’65, Chair Lawrence J. Winston ’60 and Karen Weir Wachtmeister. Standing, row one, are Susan MacDonald Johnson ’66, Mary Fishel Bijur ’65, Janet K. Langlois ’71, Sharee M. Freeman ’76, Jo Ann Campbell ’86, Elinor Tatum ’93, Karen Diesl Bruett ’66, Marion Roach Smith ’77, Melissa Wilson MacGregor ’98, Carol Pratt Hecklinger ’64 and Richard F. Brush ’52 (emeritus).  Row two, Gregory C. Ferrero ’84,  Richard S. Robie Jr. ’54 (emeritus), Denise M. Durant ’97,  Sarah Johnson Redlich ’82,  Donald K. Rose ’64,  R. Sheldon Johnson ’68,  Geoffrey E. Molson ’92, Allan P. Newell,  George N. Cochran, Patrick D. Martin ’75 and Barry Phelps ’69. Row three, James B. Brush ’77, Jeffery H. Boyd ’78, David B. Laird Jr. ’65, John P. Loughlin ’79, Kenneth O. Okoth ’01,  Derrick H. Pitts ’78, Dekkers L. Davidson ’78, John Dwight, Andre Couture ’82, Peter F. Hunt ’75, David L. Torrey ’53 (emeritus) and Bruce W. Benedict ’60 (emeritus).