Hamilton has announced the selection of its new college president, Dr. Steven Tepper, in an official statement released this morning. The naming of the school’s 21st president arrives after a months-long presidential search process following President David Wippman’s announcement that he would be retiring in June 2024. In the wake of President Wippman’s May 16, 2023 announcement, Chair of the Board of Trustees, David Solomon, released a statement the next day in which he remarks, “As difficult as it will be to replace a highly effective and admired president, Hamilton enjoys an enviable position in the higher education community, and the opportunity to lead Hamilton will undoubtedly be attractive to outstanding candidates.” The Presidential Search Committee, co-chaired by Linda Johnson ’80 and Robert V. Delaney Jr. ’79, comprised students, professors, administrators and trustees in addition to partnering with executive search firm Isaacson, Miller (IM).
President-Elect Tepper will be joining Hamilton from his current position as dean of the Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts at Arizona State University, which is recognized as the largest comprehensive design and arts school at a research university in the United States. Prior to his time at ASU, Tepper served on the faculty of Vanderbilt University, where he played a key role in establishing the national think tank Curb Center for Art, Enterprise and Public Policy. He holds his B.A. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, an M.P.P. from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, as well as both an M.A. and Ph.D in sociology from Princeton University. Tepper is a widely-recognized voice in higher education and U.S. cultural policy, as well as a prominent writer and speaker whose authorship has been prolific and whose work has facilitated critical dialogue on the national level.
In an interview with
The Spectator
, President-Elect Tepper expressed that his decision to make the move from warmer weather and a considerably larger atmosphere was driven by Hamilton’s student-centered community. Tepper remarked, “part of ASU’s mission is to organize itself around the advancement of each student which is an extraordinary mission for a large research university. Hamilton is at the apex of student-centered learning and education.” Tepper elaborated on what makes Hamilton a uniquely compelling opportunity, noting, “What attracts me to it is really the fact that it’s an intentional community that is committed to a particular way of learning and discovery, and while the community may disagree about a lot of things, they are all agreed on this kind of learning as critical…That’s a really inviting proposition to join a community that is as committed and as intentional about the way they advance knowledge…That’s what draws me in, and I think what’s different about Hamilton and what I think I’ll find unbelievably rewarding.”
The announcement of Hamilton’s 21st president arrives at a time when many university and college leaders face increased scrutiny in the public eye as institutions for higher education across the United States are embroiled in divisive political debate over events taking place in the Middle East. Perhaps most notably are the recent resignations of former University of Pennsylvania President Elizabeth McGill, closely followed by Harvard’s Claudine Gay in the aftermath of the severe criticism each received for their responses to the events of Oct. 7 in Israel. While many university and college leaders across the nation, such as our own here at Hamilton, frequently release statements regarding events or political decisions which take place outside the campus community, other institutions of higher education feel it is not the place of a college or university president to comment on such matters. Such has been the practice of the University of Chicago since 1967 in response to the Vietnam War. When asked what kind of college president Tepper envisions himself to be, he replied, “I’m a sociologist who has studied cultural conflict and protest and controversy. I have built a deep appreciation for the power of language and words…Words do hurt and they do demean and they do denigrate and cause fear. But the answer to that is not fewer words…I think if there are hateful or abhorrent things, it’s better that they’re said in the light than that they are shared in the dark…There’s also at a place like Hamilton a real accountability for your words…We have to turn outrage into inquiry.” Speaking further on institutional stances on contemporary, social and political issues, Tepper expressed, “A university should be a place that helps students and faculty and its entire community find its political voice and sharpen its political ideas, but the university itself should not be an object of politics, and often universities become the object of politics, and I think that undermines the learning community.”
College and university policies made every major headline in the nation in late June when the Supreme Court ruled against the legality of long-standing race-based affirmative action admissions processes. In response to how Hamilton can remain a hub of diversity, equity and inclusion, Tepper said, “It has to be…We know from history that creativity comes from the collision of ideas and different perspectives, and different backgrounds, and different identities. So if we’re not, then Hamilton won’t be the creative campus that it aspires to be.” Tepper has already spoken with the Hamilton admissions team and expressed great faith in the workers with whom he has met. “That complexity and the skill and the expertise of this team will allow it to continue to find, recruit, and admit fantastically diverse students” he said. Tepper declared, “We have to make sure that those students arrive at a place that is built around inclusive excellence in every fiber of its being and that is a difficult but required task of everyone in the community.” In order to foster this environment, Tepper believes we must approach the evolution of our institution with humility and with guidance from the community as a whole. He remarked, “We have to interrogate. We have to ask hard questions. We have to be comfortable being uncomfortable…I’m fully confident that we have the wisdom, years of experience, an understanding of the complexity, and relationships across the country and the world to recruit an incredibly diverse, talented student body.”
While speaking about the admissions process,
The Spectator
inquired whether President-Elect Tepper envisioned a return to Hamilton’s standardized testing requirement.
The New York Times
reported on Feb. 5 that Dartmouth’s new president, Sian Beilock, would be reinstating the SAT/ACT requirement for the Class of 2029, a move which may soon be followed by many other top colleges and universities across the United States. Not only does the Dartmouth administration believe that reinstating the testing requirement will assist their admissions team in admitting more diverse candidates, but according to
The New York Times
, three Dartmouth economists and a sociologist conducted a study where they concluded that “Test scores were a better predictor than high school grades — or student essays and teacher recommendations — of how well students would fare at Dartmouth.” In response to Dartmouth’s decision, Tepper expressed that the data on this subject matter was very complex and not air-tight. He reasoned, “Does that mean that there are not assessments that might be imagined or invented or developed that could be good predictors that we would consider, including an evolved SAT? Sure. We would always consider all tools that can get us the best class, but I’m not convinced…that the current standardized test is an essential tool for building the strongest class of students.” Tepper concluded, “I think the research is not definitive, and I would love to engage in conversation and exploration with scholars who have studied this — with our own admissions team — to make the right decision for Hamilton.”
In discussing the threats that institutions of higher education currently face, and in particular those faced by liberal arts colleges, Tepper cited growing skepticism as well as rapid and accelerating change as among the largest challenges being encountered today. Tepper proposed, “I think the opportunity is to take this invention in human learning [higher education]…and make this even more relevant now…That takes extraordinary creativity, the continued ability for faculty and students to collaborate and exchange ideas in a way that’s just not happening in the platforms that surround us.” Tepper continued, “We really have to be an antidote to a world that is placing outrage over inquiry.” The president-elect then mused on a series of questions for all members of the Hamilton community to consider. “What’s the unique liberal arts approach to sustainability? How can we imagine linking story, emotion and creativity with the science, policy and technology required to deal with climate and the challenges facing the earth?…Can a liberal arts college show what it looks like to truly not only embrace, but enable and activate pluralism as our country heads toward being a minority-majority population? We need to build the muscles. We need to understand how we communicate, how we include, how we collaborate as a pluralistic society. It’s hard, but if you can’t figure it out at a liberal arts college, where can you?”
President-Elect Tepper is committed to including students in the decision-making processes that influence their academic experiences and campus life. He expressed, “Everything has to be a prompt for inquiry. The campus itself. Its strengths, its weaknesses, its opportunities. I think we need a lot of forums for that…whether it’s office hours, sitting down for meals, going on bike rides together, taking hikes…where I can learn from students and their experience and what they think Hamilton can become.” Tepper is optimistic for Hamilton’s future and spoke on his commitment to the community with which he will soon be entrusted. Ready and open to all feedback in his fostering of an inclusive and accessible atmosphere, Tepper stated, “We have such a privileged opportunity to do amazing things together that we should take that critique and turn it into positive energy toward change, and so I’m looking forward to all the opportunities to listen and receive feedback and then get back to work. I think that’s the spirit that animates a great liberal arts college. I expect that from Hamilton, and I’m excited to be in those spaces with our students.”
