Grant Cornwell (2015-2025)

Grant Cornwell (2015-2025)

Description

Grant Cornwell was named Rollins’ fifteenth president following eight years as president of The College of Wooster in Ohio, where he championed initiatives in diversity and global engagement, collaborative research, and experiential learning. Prior to his Wooster presidency, Cornwell served as vice president of the university and dean of academic affairs at St. Lawrence University in Canton, New York, for five years. For the previous sixteen years, he had been a member and chair of St. Lawrence’s philosophy department and dean of St. Lawrence’s hallmark First-Year Program. The curiosity and exploration at the core of liberal learning remained central to his approach to higher education throughout his career, including his time at Rollins.

Arriving at Rollins in 2015, Cornwell grew Rollins’ reputation as a distinguished liberal arts college. Under his leadership, applications, enrollment, and the diversity of the student body reached the highest levels in college history. He engaged the entire college community in an extensive strategic planning process, including an ambitious capital projects plan that changed the face of the campus as facilities were constructed or renovated to support programs focused on student success in the 21st century. He led the transformation of the Hamilton Holt School evening program to meet the needs of a new generation of learners. He advanced the College’s commitment to excellence in teaching by relaunching the Endeavor Center for Faculty Development. He also shepherded an ambitious fundraising campaign that raised over $290 million, anchored by the single largest outright gift—$40 million—in Rollins’ history.

Cornwell was nationally recognized for his work in defining liberal learning in a global environment and continued to write regularly about freedom, democracy, diversity, and global citizenship. Grant was also dedicated to keeping his finger on the pulse of higher education’s issues and movements. A past member of the board of directors of the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities (NAICU) and former chair of the Association of American Colleges and Universities’ (AAC&U) Presidents’ Trust, Grant also served on the Board of the AAC&U, the Council on Foreign Relations’ Global Literacy Advisory Board, the American Council on Education’s Commission on International Initiatives, among other critical advocacy organizations in higher education.

Grant is an accomplished author. He co-authored “An Education for the Twenty-First Century: Stewardship of the Global Commons,” which appeared in AAC&U’s Liberal Education, and “On Purpose: Liberal Education and the Question of Value” from the book Higher Education and Society, to name just a few of the highly acclaimed works from his long career of scholarship.

Cornwell hold bachelor’s degrees in philosophy and biology from St. Lawrence University and master’s and doctoral degrees in philosophy from the University of Chicago. In 2017, he was awarded an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree from The College of Wooster, and in 2020, an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree from St. Lawrence University. In addition to holding the George D. and Harriet W. Cornell Chair of Distinguished Presidential Leadership, Cornwell was a member of the Rollins faculty during his presidency, serving as a professor of philosophy.

First Year of Presidency

2015

Grant Cornwell (2015-2025)
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