Swarthmore College president to step down in 2027 after 12-year run
Valerie Smith, 70, didn’t say specifically why she is choosing to leave the presidency, but it will be at the end of her current contract, which had been extended in 2024.
Swarthmore College President Valerie Smith will step down in June 2027 after concluding her 12th academic year in the job.
Smith, the highly selective liberal arts college’s first African American president, said in a message to campus that she decided to announce her decision now to give the school time for “a thoughtful, seamless transition.”
“Serving as Swarthmore’s 15th president has been one of the great privileges of my life,” she said.
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Smith, 70, didn’t say specifically why she is choosing to leave the presidency, but it will be at the end of her current contract, which had been extended in 2024. An attempt to reach her for comment Tuesday was not successful.
“These are tumultuous times,” Smith wrote. “Like many institutions, we are navigating new pressures, including unprecedented threats to our very mission. We will continue to face these challenges together, thoughtfully and deliberately. In doing so, we reaffirm Swarthmore’s enduring value.”
The college said it would launch a search for Smith’s successor and already had chosen a search firm.
“This is a pivotal moment for the college and for higher education more broadly, and the board recognizes how consequential this search will be in shaping Swarthmore’s future,” said Harold “Koof” Kalkstein, a 1978 graduate and chair of the school’s board of managers.
A scholar of African American literature and culture, Smith came to Swarthmore in July 2015 from Princeton where she had been dean of the college and a professor of literature and English.
Smith steered Swarthmore through COVID, various student protests — including a pro-Palestinian encampment that was erected on campus in 2024 — and more recently, funding threats from the federal government. Swarthmore had feared the federal government would increase the excise tax it had paid on its endowment earnings, but the school actually ended up not having to pay at all under new rules announced last year.
In 2021, the college decided to stick with a plan to partner with an organization that places retired military personnel on campus as visiting faculty members despite pushback.
“I ultimately drew from the College’s mission and my fundamental belief that critical to the liberal arts is our ability to engage in the exchange of diverse and often opposing views, not to shut them out,” Smith wrote at the time.
When she arrived at Swarthmore, she said her plan for dealing with a student body known for its activism was to listen carefully, craft a careful, well-researched response, and communicate.
“It’s critically important to maintain open dialogue with students,” she said at the start of her presidency in 2015.
Kalkstein expressed gratitude for her service.
“She has modeled integrity, intellectual curiosity, compassion, and empathy, all in service of our shared mission,“ Kalkstein said. ”Swarthmore is forever stronger thanks to Val’s leadership.”
Smith will be leaving at the same time as Haverford College president Wendy Raymond, who announced her departure in November. That will leave Bryn Mawr College president Wendy Cadge, who has been at the school for less than two years, as the senior leader of the three colleges, which belong to a tri-college consortium.