Photo from GW Today
By Caroline Dehn
Starting this semester, GW experienced a change in leadership, welcoming Interim President, Mark S. Wrighton. The announcement of Wrighton’s governance was revealed at a Faculty Senate meeting on September 10th, 2021 along with the upcoming retirement of former President Leblanc.
President Wrighton has agreed to serve as an interim president at the George Washington University for up to 18 months as the search continues to find a more permanent replacement.
The retirement of former President Leblanc this December came six months earlier than originally anticipated. According to the Washington Post, Leblanc served the shortest tenure that the university has seen in over 50 years. Throughout his term, President Leblanc received criticism for taking actions on a number of different issues without faculty approval among other concerns. In April of 2020, over 120 faculty members asked Leblanc to resign due to concerns that the pandemic exacerbated worries for future leadership. Many GW students and faculty wanted to see a new leader bring energy and ideas to the university.
President Wrighton has many years of experience leading universities, as well as being a professor himself. He started out teaching chemistry at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1972 as an assistant professor, where he was then made a full-time professor and later the head of the chemistry department. Also,he served as MIT’s provost beginning in 1990. After leaving MIT in 1995, Wrighton moved on to become chancellor of Washington University in St. Louis, where he served until 2019.
With the uncertainty and persistence of the pandemic, students are looking for stable, strong leadership to ensure the upcoming semester progresses as smoothly as possible.
In a message from President Wrighton on January 3rd, he noted, “I am grateful for the advice of our dedicated GW medical and public health professionals who are recommending the procedures we will follow.” Wrighton promised to listen to medical professionals on how best to manage COVID-19 with the right protocols in place to ensure student safety.
As the semester progresses, students and faculty will learn more about President Wrighton as he leads our community. His goal for the next 18 months is, “to work with the GW community to establish a trajectory that puts us on a path of greater contributions and worldwide influence.”
