A couple of months ago, MICA’s longtime president Fred Lazarus announced that he planned to step down as of May 2014; this week, Goucher College’s president, Sanford J. Ungar, announced his plans to do the same. Ungar, who’s helmed the school for the past 13 years, didn’t give an official reason for his resignation, the Baltimore Sun reports.
In the letter he sent to the board of trustees announcing his retirement, Ungar mentioned the “many political, financial, and curricular challenges” facing liberal arts colleges today as one of the contributing factors. During his tenure at Goucher, Ungar oversaw a reformulation of the school’s core curriculum, including the inclusion of the nation’s only study abroad requirement. In 2011, Ungar helped launch the school’s first strategic plan in a decade, which targeted increasing enrollment and improving retention, among other things. Under Ungar’s watch, applications to the school climbed so much that the school faced a housing crisis at one point, the Sun notes.
Unlike many university presidents, Ungar wasn’t a career academic; instead, some of his prominent roles prior to his presidency included stints as director of broadcasting agency Voice of America, hosting NPR’s All Things Considered, and serving as Washington editor of The Atlantic, managing editor of Foreign Policy, staff writer for the Washington Post, and contributing writer to The Economist and The New York Times Magazine.
Goucherites who’ve grown used to seeing Ungar’s face around campus need not fear; he plans to return to the school to teach after a brief sabbatical.
Ungar was also dean of the School of Communication at American University, when I got my grad degree there in 1991.