[NORTON, Mass. ] — Wheaton College President Dale Rogers Marshall has announced that she will resign on June 30, 2004, after leading the college for 12 years.

March 7, 2003

[NORTON, Mass.] -- Wheaton College President Dale Rogers Marshall has announced that she will resign on June 30, 2004, after leading the college for 12 years.

In a letter to the college community, Marshall said, "The college is well positioned now to welcome a new leader. Over the past ten years, we have had remarkable success together. The Campaign for Wheaton helped create momentum that we are all committed to continuing, even in a difficult environment. Our new strategic plan, 'Wheaton 2005: Connections to the Future,' provides a foundation on which the new president can build."

Patricia A. King, chair of the Board of Trustees and a 1963 graduate of Wheaton, said, "Wheaton is unquestionably stronger today because of President Marshall's leadership. In the past decade, the college has become significantly more selective, our students are winning prestigious academic awards such as the Rhodes Scholarship, our faculty has grown significantly more diverse and our resources have grown through vigorous fundraising and good management. Dale has created a solid foundation from which Wheaton can continue to reach new heights."

King expressed personal appreciation for Marshall's guidance. "Serving as the chair of the board has been especially rewarding, thanks to Dale's support and encouragement," King said. "She has been a very skillful, collaborative leader who understands how to build consensus and inspire others to commit themselves to the college's advancement."

The college will start a national search immediately for Wheaton's seventh president. A committee made up of trustees, faculty, staff and students will conduct the search and seek input from all members of the college community about the qualifications that would be most important for Wheaton's new president.

A highly respected political scientist specializing in urban politics, Marshall was appointed as Wheaton's sixth president in 1992. Since then, she has led an economic and academic expansion of Wheaton, which has resulted in growing recognition of the college's status as a leading liberal arts college. In the past decade, Wheaton students won an impressive array of awards, including a Rhodes, a British Marshall, 15 Fulbrights, five Rotary scholarships, two Trumans and two James Madison Fellowships, a Beinecke, Udall and a DAAD (German Academic Exchange Service) award. Most recently, the college has been invited to be one of 50 institutions eligible to nominate students for the Watson Fellowship.

During this time, the college has enjoyed dramatic growth in applicants for admission and remarkable increases in selectivity. The number of high school students applying for admission to Wheaton has doubled during Marshall's tenure. At the same time, the percentage of first-year students who graduated in the top ten percent of their high school class rose from 18 to 43 percent.

The foundation for Wheaton's successes was laid with the strategic plan that Marshall authored in 1993. The result of extensive study and input from every sector of the college community, Excellence and Equilibrium identified a comprehensive plan for enhancing the college's fiscal strength, academic quality and institutional reputation. Key to the plan was the Campaign for Wheaton, the college's most ambitious fund-raising effort. The $65 million campaign ultimately raised more than $90 million for faculty salaries, student scholarships, academic programs and new facilities. Enhancements supported by the Campaign include the hiring of more faculty to improve the student-faculty ratio, completion $20 million arts building project and the construction of two new residence halls.

Her commitment to diversity and social justice has enabled the college to recruit a diverse and exceptional group of scholars to join the college's faculty, and to institute new programs aimed at increasing diversity on campus. Marshall also has been dedicated to honoring the coeducational institution's legacy as a former women's college. Wheaton continues to value equality of opportunity for women and men in its curricular and co-curricular programs. Most recently, Marshall has instituted a women's leadership conference that connects current women students with accomplished alumnae who can serve as mentors and role models.

In recognition of her successful leadership of Wheaton, Marshall was the 2002 recipient of the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce Pinnacle Award for women leaders.

While serving as Wheaton's president, Marshall has remained active as a scholar and a faculty member, regularly teaching courses on urban politics. She is the co-author of Protest is Not Enough: The Struggle of Blacks and Hispanics for Equality in Urban Politics (UC Press, 1984). The study won two prestigious American Political Science Association prizes for the best book on American Policy and the best book on ethnic relations. Her latest publication is a co-edited book, Racial Politics in American Cities (Longman, 1990; 3rd ed., 2002). She has also authored and edited numerous books and articles in her field of concentration, urban politics. She also authored "Revolution and Evolution: Strategies for Change" in The Presidency, Fall 1999, (pp 38-40), American Council on Education magazine.

She chaired the Association of Independent Colleges and Universities of Massachusetts. She was elected to the National Academy of Public Administration in 1987. In 1996 she was elected to the board of directors of the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities. She currently chairs the American Council on Education's Leadership Commission, serves on the board of the New England Zenith Fund of the New England Mutual Life Insurance Company, is a member of the American Student Assistance Guarantor Board, and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. She was a member of the Cornell University Board of Trustees from 1983 to 1993 and served as vice president of the American Political Science Association and president of the Western Political Science Association.

Marshall received her B.A. in government from Cornell University in 1959 with high honors in government and distinction in all subjects. She was elected to Phi Kappa and the senior women's honorary, Mortar Board. She received a master's in political science from U.C. Berkeley, where she studied as a Woodrow Wilson Fellow. Her Ph.D., also in political science, was earned in 1969 from U.C.L.A., where she held a Regents Fellowship. Marshall served as academic dean of Wellesley College from 1986 to 1992 and was acting president of that institution in 1987-88. Prior to coming to Wellesley, she served as associate dean of the College of Letters and Sciences and as faculty assistant to the vice chancellor at the University of California, Davis. She was a Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Davis, and previously taught at U.C. Berkeley and U.C.L.A. In 1975, she was honored with the U.C. Davis Distinguished Teaching Award.

In her letter to the community, Marshall said that she and her husband Don are deeply grateful to the trustees, faculty, staff, students and alumnae/i for making these years such satisfying ones for us.

"I look forward to working with you in the year ahead to continue Wheaton's exceptional advancement as we approach the institution's 175th anniversary in 2009."