<p>Marlene Gerber Fried, a professor of philosophy and director of the college's Civil Liberties and Public Policy program, will serve as acting president until July 1, 2011, when a permanent president is to be appointed.</p>
<p>Gerber Fried, who came to Hampshire in 1986, is well known as a leader in the reproductive rights movement. For more see:
Hampshire</a> College names acting president in wake of Hexter's departure | GazetteNET</p>
<p>Hampshire made an announcement on their website as well:
[Marlene</a> Gerber Fried to be Acting Hampshire College President](<a href=“http://www.hampshire.edu/news/18902.htm]Marlene”>http://www.hampshire.edu/news/18902.htm)</p>
<p>Marlene Gerber gave a good speech at Hampshire’s 2010 Convocation:
[Convocation</a> welcome by Acting President Marlene Gerber Fried](<a href=“http://www.hampshire.edu/news/19031.htm]Convocation”>http://www.hampshire.edu/news/19031.htm)</p>
<p>I liked the part where she asked students not to occupy the President’s office for at least a week.</p>
<p>I actually listened to the whole speech just because I liked her tone … seemed more down-to-earth than the typical college prez but without sounding self-consciously so.</p>
<p>I attended an Alumni & Families event in Seattle last week, and Marlene Gerber Fried gave a nice presentation of where Hampshire has been and where it is going. She alluded to her own women’s health activist background by saying that her Interim Presidency was, “unplanned, but not unwanted”! She also intimated that there would be news arriving on campus next week, regarding the status of the president search.</p>
<p>The search committee is down to 4 finalists, although their names were not announced. As with many high-level searches, the candidates don’t want their names out their, in case they don’t get offered the job and then have to deal with their current colleagues about it.</p>
<p>Hampshire College announced that Jonathan Lash ([Jonathan</a> Lash | World Resources Institute](<a href=“http://www.wri.org/profile/jonathan-lash]Jonathan”>Jonathan Lash | World Resources Institute)), President of the World Resources Institute and the finalist for the Hampshire College presidency, will be on campus today to meet with students, faculty, and staff.</p>
<p>Wow – how interesting! He’s an amazing man – hope he’s up to leading all the Hampsters! And my daughter gets to start with him as new pres in September - very exciting!</p>
<p>Whoops – I jumped to conclusions too fast. Do you know who the other finalists are?</p>
<p>Well, I jumped to the exact same conclusion too. I don’t know for sure, but I copied the text verbatim from an email, that Jonathan Lash is “the” finalist, not “a” finalist. That would seem to imply that he is the sole individual being considered.</p>
<p>He’s an interesting choice to lead a college. And I can’t imagine coming publicly for lunch as one of several finalists and letting the world know you’re in the running for the job – but if he’s “the” finalist, why don’t they call him the designee or something more clear? Keep us posted, please! (;</p>
<p>[Hampshire</a> College Names Jonathan Lash as President](<a href=“http://www.hampshire.edu/news/hampshire-college-names-jonathan-lash-as-president.htm]Hampshire”>http://www.hampshire.edu/news/hampshire-college-names-jonathan-lash-as-president.htm)</p>
<p>Well, that was fast! I guess the meetings yesterday went well!</p>
<p>Jonathan Lash sounds like a fascinating guy who could take Hampshire in some great new directions. Being an academic-type myself, I do worry a bit that he has been out of academia for most of his professional life. In my experience, we sometimes like to hire folks outside of the profession as a way of finding someone who will think outside the box, but they don’t always understand the peculiar details of college administration. I’ll be very interested to see how well he does. </p>
<p>FYI, here is an excerpt from Rolling Stone’s November 2005 article, “Climate Warriors and Heroes”</p>
<p>THE GO-BETWEEN</p>
<p>Jonathan Lash</p>
<p>What do leading Fortune 500 companies such as IBM, General Electric, DuPont and Starbucks have in common? They’ve all listened to Jonathan Lash. As president of the World Resources Institute, Lash has arguably done more than any other environmentalist to bridge the bitter divide between industry interests and green groups determined to halt global warming. A former top advisor to President Clinton, Lash has waltzed into the boardrooms of the world’s biggest polluters, sweet-talked CEOs with his kindly air, and pushed them to not only slash their emissions but also improve their bottom lines. “He is a committed green and a pillar of integrity, but he does what most eco-purists are too prudish to do: get in bed with industry,” says Kevin Curtis of the National Environmental Trust. “And he never regrets it in the morning.”</p>
<p>A former Peace Corps volunteer and the son of Greenwich Village radicals, Lash considers himself a “pragmatic idealist.” He even supports nuclear power as a necessary evil in the fight against climate change – a position that has drawn the ire of some environmentalists. “Global warming is the most pressing environmental problem humankind has ever faced,” he says. “We can’t push any potential solution off the table.” The challenge of storing radioactive waste, Lash insists, pales in comparison to the floods, violent storms and droughts that are increasing as a result of global warming.</p>
<p>An avid skier and sailor, Lash used to own 13 motorcycles – but stopped riding after his youngest daughter threatened to get one for herself. A Harvard graduate, he started off as a federal litigator, switching to environmental law after he grew weary of putting people in jail. His hard-bitten pragmatism about climate change is paying off. He helped DuPont cut its climate-warming pollution by 65 percent – five years ahead of schedule. He worked with Starbucks to obtain 5 percent of the electricity for its North American retail stores from renewable sources, and with IBM to dramatically boost the energy efficiency of its factories and products.</p>
<p>Lash, 60, believes that a growing number of corporate leaders are ready to back a strong federal cap on climate-warming pollution. “It’s enough to make even a gloomy environmentalist hopeful,” he says. The irony, he notes, is that a president who boasts of his business degree is bucking the industry trend. “Everyone predicted that George Bush was going to be the ‘CEO president,’” Lash says. “But if he truly had business savvy, he’d be following the path of these trailblazers.”</p>
<p>I just spoke to my daughter, who attended a ‘meet and greet’ session with Jonathan Lash. She said that most students really liked what he had to say, that he was very informal and ‘real’. He seems to be approachable and appreciates and understands the kind of advocacy that Hampshire students tend to pursue. Lash told the students that he knows how to fundraise and make his way through State and Federal bureaucracies. Most of the kids thought that he would be a good fit with Hampshire. </p>
<p>Students apparently asked him about his thin educational experience, and he replied that it had been his intent to go into education, but he got deeply involved in an environmental lawsuit that took him in a different direction. He followed that direction for many years, but he is ‘done’ with all of the D.C. politics and wants to go somewhere where there is less talk and more action.</p>
<p>Wow! This is going to be fascinating to watch! Thanks for the information which I’ve passed on to my niece who will be attending this fall.</p>
<p>Yes, it will indeed be interesting.</p>
<p>Marlene Gerber Fried gave a nice outgoing Commencement address:
[President’s</a> Remarks](<a href=“http://www.hampshire.edu/news/presidents-remarks-commencement-2011.htm]President’s”>President's Remarks | Hampshire College)
My daughter said that numerous students held signs praising her.</p>
<p>My favorite quote: “Know that you don’t know what you don’t know”</p>
<p>Incoming President, Jonathan Lash, paid Marlene Fried some compliments in his Convocation address ([Hampshire</a> College Convocation 2011 Jonathan Lash by hampshirecollege on SoundCloud - Create, record and share your sounds for free](<a href=“http://■■■■■■■■■■■■■■/hampshirecollege/hampshire-college]Hampshire”>Stream Hampshire College Convocation 2011 Jonathan Lash by hampshirecollege | Listen online for free on SoundCloud)), and echoed her plea from a year ago to please put off occupying his office for little while, “until it was appropriate”!</p>