Amherst College has just named Anthony (Tony) W. Marx, professor and director of undergraduate studies in political science at Columbia University, as its 18th president.
According to the college's press release:
Marx is a respected teacher and an internationally recognized scholar who has written three books on nation building, particularly in South Africa, but also in the U.S., Brazil and Europe. He also has established and managed programs designed to strengthen secondary school education in the U.S. and abroad. In addition to his faculty post at Columbia, he currently serves as director of the Gates Foundation-funded Early College/High School Initiative at the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation, which establishes model public high schools as partnerships between school systems and universities; and he is founder of the Columbia Urban Educators Program, a public school teacher recruitment and training partnership. He also was founder of Khanya College, a South African secondary school that helped prepare more than 1,000 black students for university.
To the surprise of some observers, the new president is neither an alum of the College (three straight non-alums), nor a woman or member of a minority group (none in the College's history). And it's quite a big step up for Marx -- his two predecessors were the president of Trinity College and the dean of Columbia University. Marx has no similar level experience.
But he's got quite a resume demonstrating caring about race and education, and seems like a cool guy. We all wish him well.
Marx succeeds Tom Gerety, who has served for the past nine years.
If anyone knows more about Marx worth sharing, email me.
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