Nicole Hurd was appointed the 18th president of Lafayette College in Easton, Pennsylvania. She will be the second woman to serve as president of the selective liberal arts college. Alison Byerly, who in 2013 was named the first woman president of Lafayette, will become president of Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota on August 1. (See WIAReport post.)
Lafayette College enrolls more than 2,600 students, all undergraduates. The school enrolled only male students until 1970. Today, women make up 51 percent of the student body.
“One of the things you’ll hear me share with Lafayette students is that none of us lives a linear journey. Lafayette is the next part in my own nonlinear journey, and I could not be more excited,” said Dr. Hurd. “I am bringing my head, heart, and hands to a community that will pursue a braver, bolder future as a model of academic and inclusive excellence in higher education. It is a terrific honor to help build the College’s next chapter.”
Dr. Hurd has been serving as chief executive officer of College Advising Corps, which she launched in 2005. CAC has helped more than 525,000 low-income, first-generation, and underrepresented students enroll in higher education by placing more than 800 recent college graduates as near-peer advisers in 795 high schools across America.
Earlier in her career, Dr. Hurd was assistant dean and director of the Center for Undergraduate Excellence at the University of Virginia.
Dr. Hurd is a graduate of the University of Notre Dame, where she majored in history. She holds a master’s degree in liberal studies from Georgetown University, and a Ph.D. in religious studies from the University of Virginia.