The board of trustees of Elizabethtown College in Pennsylvania has announced that Elizabeth A. Rider will serve as the college’s sixteenth president. She has been serving as transitional president since January. Her contract extends to June 2025.
“I am honored to lead Elizabethtown College as its 16th president,” Dr. Rider said. “The time for growth and opportunity has never been better for the institution. With our already growing momentum with enrollment, academic programming, diversity efforts, and strengthening and building relationships within the community, I am excited and energized to continue to elevate our college’s greatest assets and build a strong sense of belonging for all.”
Elizabethtown College, located halfway between Lancaster and Harrisburg in central Pennsylvania, enrolls just under 1,700 undergraduate students and about 240 graduate students, according to the most recent data available from the U.S. Department of Education. Women make up 59 percent of the undergraduate student body.
President Rider has spent the majority of her academic career at Elizabethtown College teaching psychology and serving in various administrative roles including provost and senior vice president of academic affairs.
Dr. Rider is a graduate of Gettysburg College in Pennsylvania. She holds master’s and doctoral degrees in psychology from Vanderbilt University in Nashville.