A West Point dean, a former Pentagon official, a top Air Force Academy administrator, and a program director from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government are all vying to become Norwich University’s next president.
The four finalists for the top job at the private military college visited the Northfield campus this week, meeting with administrators, faculty, and students. Each candidate also participated in a public forum, which the school live-streamed online.
Norwich’s presidential search stands in contrast to the most recent high-profile presidential college search in Vermont, when officials at the University of Vermont announced just one finalist, Suresh Garimella. Colleges are increasingly keeping the names of all applicants confidential, including of those who make it to the final round – much to the ire of student and faculty groups.
Phil Soucy, a vice chair on the Norwich board of trustees, is leading the search committee. He said school officials considered that some candidates might decline to apply if they knew their names might eventually become public, but ultimately decided keeping the finalists secret wasn’t “right for our community.”
The school has also posted CVs for each of the final four candidates on its website, and is soliciting input via an online survey.
“We’re getting a lot of excellent input from our campus visits,” Soucy said.
The school retained Academic Search, a Washington, D.C. consulting firm, to seek out and vet candidates. It received 48 applications from candidates hoping to replace Richard Schneider, who has been at the helm at the Northfield campus since 1992.
The four finalists are U.S. Army Brig. Gen. Cindy R. Jebb, U.S. Air Force Maj. Gen. Cedric George, Mark Anarumo, and U.S. Army Maj. Gen. William E. Rapp.
Jebb, who currently serves as the dean of the Academic Board at West Point, has taught courses in comparative politics, international security, cultural anthropology, terrorism and officership. She has also worked military intelligence for the NSA, and holds degrees from Duke, West Point, and the Naval War College.
Now a private consultant, George previously served as the director of logistics for the U.S. Air Force at the Pentagon. He has also been an Air Force commander in Washington, D.C., Oklahoma, and Georgia, and holds degrees from Norwich, Troy State University, Air University, and the Eisenhower School for National Security.
Rapp, a faculty member and program director at the Belfer Center at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, teaches courses on national security, strategy, civil-military relations, ethics, and leadership. He has also been a brigade commander in Iraq, and holds degrees from West Point, Stanford, and the U.S. Army College.
Anarumo, now the director at the Center for Character and Leadership Development at the U.S. Air Force Academy, recently deployed to Korea to lead five multinational installations in support of a U.N. pressure campaign to force negotiations with North Korea. He has also been a U.S. Air Force vice wing commander in Turkey, and holds degrees from Harvard and Rutgers.
Norwich is in a much better financial position than many of its peers, particularly in northern New England, where four Vermont colleges have either closed or announced plans to merge this year alone. The school’s enrollment has held steady in the last decade, according to federal data, and Schneider has been a prodigious fundraiser, growing the Norwich endowment to over $200 million.
But the headwinds facing higher education are bearing down on Norwich as well, and Soucy said the search committee had looked for candidates who could demonstrate they would be proactive about price competition in the industry and a declining school-aged population.
And the candidates, too, made frequent mention of demographics and fundraising in their pitches to the community.
“I’ve heard it said that the nation is out of students. I don’t agree with that. I think there are plenty of Norwich students – we just have to find them,” George said during a forum at the school.
If she were chosen, Jebb would be the first female Norwich president. And if he were picked, George would be the first African American leader for the school.
The board of trustees is expected to make their final pick, negotiate a contract, and publicly announce Norwich’s next president by late January. Schneider’s salary was $465,552 in 2016, the most recent year for which tax forms are publicly available.
