Western Michigan University has selected Georgetown University dean Edward Montgomery to be its next president, replacing retiring president John Dunn. Montgomery is a labor economist who has had prominent roles in the Clinton and Obama administrations, including serving as Obama’s executive director of the White House Council for Auto Communities & Workers.
Western’s board approved the selection during a special meeting this morning. Dunn is retiring at the end of the school year after a decade at the helm of Western Michigan.
“We were fortunate to have a number of gifted candidates emerge through the search process,” WMU Trustee William Johnston, who led the 22-member Presidential Search Advisory Committee that helped identify Montgomery as the successful finalist, in a press release. “Edward Montgomery’s personal demeanor, commitment to transformational change and extensive academic background resonated with all of us involved in the search and spoke directly to the themes that emerged from our numerous listening sessions with university stakeholders.”
Montgomery has held faculty positions at Carnegie Mellon and Michigan State universities as well as the University of Maryland. He has been at Georgetown since 2010.
For the full article, see David Jesse, “Western Michigan names Georgetown dean as its next president“, Detroit Free Press, April 12, 2017.