President's Message

(l. to r.) Gina MacLaren, President James M. MacLaren, Bella Calderone ’22, M’23, Dain Vallie ’23, Bailey Harper ’22, and D.J. Gorenberg ’22

Dear LVC Community,

Thank you to the many of you who returned to The Valley for Homecoming Weekend last month. It was the perfect fall weekend on our beautiful campus. It was a joy to watch the alumni who attended reunions, including the 60th reunion of the Class of 1962 music education majors, and see the Athletic Hall of Fame inductees and Alumni Award winners be honored.

I want to begin by acknowledging one of the most significant gifts in LVC history, which will create in perpetuity the Katherine J. Bishop Fund for Global Study. The $5 million gift, established through a donor-advised fund at Vanguard Charitable, will positively influence the lives of countless future generations of our students by providing grants to help remove the financial barriers to study abroad. Kathy has supported The Valley and our students in so many ways since she joined the Board of Trustees in 1988. On behalf of our students, thank you, Kathy! Please see page 6 to learn more about how this generous gift will benefit our students.

On the academic side, we welcomed Dr. Colleen Marshall as LVC’s first chair of nursing, which enrolled its first class of students this fall. And, as you can read in the News section, progress continues on pace for our new Nursing and Interdisciplinary Health Education Facility. This facility will open in July of 2023. Dr. Treva Clark, chair of accounting, business, and economics; international business; and director of graduate programs in business, was named Eugene C. Fish Distinguished Chair of Business. She is the first woman to hold the chair. Dr. Robert Creath, associate professor of exercise science and director of the Lewis Human Performance Lab, along with colleagues at Penn State Health and Penn State Engineering was awarded a $1.5 million grant from the U.S. Department of Defense to research ways to identify post-recovery injury risks using micro-Doppler radar technology.

Regarding the student experience, Dr. Tomomi T Horning joined us as executive director of The Edward and Lynn Breen Center for Career and Professional Development, which was renamed to better reflect the services it offers students and alumni. We also joined Dr. Felicia Haywood-Brown, vice president of diversity, equity, and inclusive excellence, in welcoming two new members of her team: Annesha Edwards-Carter, director of diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging, and Giovanni Negron-Garcia, associate director of diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging.

Finally, I wish to congratulate the record four head coaches named Middle Atlantic Conference Coach of the Year for their sport this past spring: Scot Adams (softball), Jonas Fester (baseball), Joy Graeff (women’s tennis), and Dave Remsburg (men’s tennis).

Best regards,

James M. MacLaren, M.A., Ph.D. President of Lebanon Valley College