Ursinus president to step down

Ursinus College president John Strassburger will resign June 30 for personal and health reasons after 16 years at the helm of the Collegeville school, which enjoyed dramatic growth and improved prestige as a model liberal arts institution under his leadership.

Strassburger, 67, announced his plans to a gathering of more than 350 students, faculty, and staff yesterday in Bomberger Auditorium. His departure had been discussed Wednesday during a meeting of the college trustees' executive board.

"With truly bittersweet feelings of both anticipation and regret, I have decided the time is right for my family and for me, personally and for health reasons, and right for Ursinus as well, for me to step down," Strassburger said in a statement. "I am proud to say that the college has never been stronger or more secure in its identity."

Strassburger, whose career spans 40 years in higher education, will stay on for two years as president emeritus to assist with the transition.

Ursinus will conduct a national search for a replacement.

"Owing to President Strassburger's extraordinary leadership . . . we are confident that Ursinus could hardly be in a better position to select the next great leader in liberal education," board chairman Spencer Foreman said in a statement.

Under Strassburger, the college grew from 1,100 students to 1,700; added majors in art, theater, and dance; and hired about a dozen arts faculty, giving its liberal arts status a firm boost.

"John Strassburger is a strong and effective president highly qualified for the position and esteemed across the campus," said a 2009 reaccreditation report from the Middle States Commission on Higher Education. "His leadership has helped bring Ursinus College to emergent eminence among liberal arts colleges."

The school requires students to engage in independent learning and emphasizes undergraduate research. All students must take a two-semester interdisciplinary liberal arts study seminar stressing the intellectual process.

The 10-year reaccreditation report also cited the school's extensive construction and renovation projects and beautiful landscaping.

"Ursinus has accomplished all of this with a resource base that is relatively modest when compared to colleges with similar aspirations and size," the report said.

The report also contained some critiques: an under-performance of Ursinus' endowment, which stood at $111.5 million in June 2008; a smaller percentage of students who accepted admission to Ursinus than a decade earlier, largely the result of an explosion in applications as the college sought to grow; and a six-year graduation rate of 78 percent even though more than 90 percent of freshmen come back for sophomore year.

"They misunderstood the extent to which we took capital gifts and put them in the plant," Strassburger said of the endowment finding, adding that he was largely pleased with the report.

He said he looked forward to overseeing commencement and having the chance to say hello and goodbye.