The Champlain College Board of Trustees has selected Donald Laackman, president of Harold Washington College in Chicago, to replace outgoing president David Finney.
Laackman has been president of Harold Washington for three years, according to a press release from the college. Previously he was a principal at Civic Consulting Alliance where he managed career and technical education programs for 25,000 Chicago public schoolchildren. He also served as a managing director at Accenture, a global technology firm. Laackman holds a bachelor’s degree and master’s of public policy from the University of Chicago.
Laackman will begin on July 1, a day after Finney, who has served as president for nine years, retires. Finney has helped to further establish Champlain College’s reputation as a topnotch business and technology school. He also led very successful fundraising efforts for the college.
At a gathering at Champlain on Friday, Laackman told students, faculty and staff that “Champlain College’s approach to education is rewriting the rules” because it is giving students the skills to adapt in a “rapidly changing job market.”
“I am excited by the opportunity to lead this entrepreneurial, innovative College and to deliver on the promise of higher education to transform students’ lives,” Laackman said in a statement.
Mary Powell, CEO of Green Mountain Power and chair of trustees for the college, said a nationwide search attracted an “unprecedented” number of talented applicants.
“Don will bring incredible intellect, emotional engagement and vast professional experience to the role,” Powell said in a statement. “I cannot think of a person who could better embody Champlain College’s ‘radically pragmatic’ approach to higher education,” Powell said in a statement.
Champlain has 2,000 traditional undergraduate students in residence and 1,300 graduate and continuing professional studies students, primarily online, according to a press release.
Champlain was listed as a “Top-Up-and-Coming School” by U.S. News & World Report’s America’s Best Colleges. Atlantic magazine recently described Champlain as the “Ideal College.”
