After nine years of service as president of Lawrence University, Jill Beck has announced her retirement date, June 30. To fill that vacancy, LU has picked up the executive vice president from Princeton University.
Mark Burstein announced his appointment yesterday and tendered his resignation from the Ivy League schools which he served since 2004.
“It is with a mixture of great pride and immense sadness that I face the prospect that Mark Burstein will be leaving Princeton to become the 16th president of Lawrence University,” Princeton President Shirley M. Tilghman said. “Mark has been an extraordinarily effective administrator for the past eight years, and a wonderful colleague. He led our ambitious campus master plan, and had a major role in every capital project we have undertaken, from Whitman College to the Lewis Center for the Arts.”
Burstein, who will be maintaining his position until summer of 2013 is excited for his new role and will bring a wealth of experience he picked up at his time at Princeton and ten years at Columbia University prior to that.
“The past eight-plus years have been such a professionally fulfilling experience working with wonderful colleagues, world-class faculty and some of the brightest students in the country,” Burstein said. “I am looking forward to participating more directly in the undergraduate student experience as president of Lawrence University and I hope the considerable amount I have learned at Princeton will allow me to be successful in my new role.”
Burstein was a natural fit and stood out as the top candidate from hundreds of applicants. “Breadth of leadership and deep higher education experience across multiple institutions,” said Terry Franke, chair of the Lawrence University Board of Trustees.
“I went to a liberal arts college as an undergraduate and I feel in some ways I will be returning to my roots as president of Lawrence University,” Burstein said. “One of the attractions of working in higher education is how transformative attending an institution like Lawrence, or Princeton, or Vassar can be in a student’s life.”