The Board of Trustees, following a national search, has unanimously elected Mary K. Boyd, Ph.D., to serve as the next President of Emmanuel College.
Dear Members of the Emmanuel College Community,
Last fall, the Emmanuel College Board of Trustees launched an initiative to identify a successor to Sister Janet Eisner, SNDdeN, following her decision to conclude her historic 43-year presidency in 2022. Since then, we have sought to find a singularly experienced and faith-filled visionary committed to maximizing the vibrancy of the College’s Catholic educational mission in its second century.
Today, I am pleased to announce that the Board of Trustees, following a national search, has unanimously elected Mary K. Boyd, Ph.D., to serve as the next President of Emmanuel College. Dr. Boyd will begin her tenure at the start of the Fall 2022 semester.
An eminent chemistry professor and researcher with more than three decades of experience as a senior administrator at Catholic and mission-driven institutions, Dr. Boyd is exceptionally qualified to build on Emmanuel’s strengths in today’s dynamic higher education marketplace.
Throughout her career, Dr. Boyd has demonstrated the same entrepreneurial spirit that has long characterized Emmanuel. Since 2017, she has served as Provost at Berry College in Georgia, a member of the Annapolis Group, a nationwide network of liberal arts colleges including Amherst College, Kenyon College, Pomona College, Vassar College and Williams College. As Berry’s chief academic officer, Dr. Boyd has led the development of innovative undergraduate and graduate programs in areas ranging from business and nursing to the arts and sciences. In addition, she has expanded student internship and research opportunities and collaborated in the development of new revenue streams through creative partnerships with external organizations.
At Berry, as well as in prior roles at three Catholic Colleges – St. Edward’s University, the University of San Diego, and Loyola University Chicago – Dr. Boyd has shown a remarkable versatility, embracing responsibilities spanning fundraising, enrollment, student life, budgeting and finance. As a result, she brings to Emmanuel a truly interdisciplinary knowledge of the inner workings of a thriving educational enterprise, along with a strategic grasp of the issues and opportunities facing the College in a post-pandemic landscape.
A practicing Catholic, Dr. Boyd is deeply committed to celebrating and stewarding Emmanuel’s identity as a Catholic college rooted in the charism of the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur. Further, she is dedicated to fostering an open and inclusive environment in which people of diverse backgrounds and faith traditions are honored, welcomed and invited to discern the unique roles they will play in building a better world. She is eager to play an active and visible role in student life and to contribute to the warmth and dynamism that have become synonymous with the Emmanuel community.
In these and many other respects, Dr. Boyd will honor and build on Sister Janet Eisner’s legacy. During her tenure, Sister Janet has had a profound impact on generations of students, and we are eager to see all the ways she will continue to enrich and advance the mission as President Emerita.
The success of our presidential search is attributable, in significant measure, to the thoughtful input and perspectives provided throughout the past six months by representatives of key College constituencies, including Trustees, faculty, staff, students and alumni. I am particularly grateful to the members of the Presidential Search Committee, who in April assumed the demanding task of reviewing an expansive and highly qualified candidate pool and submitting recommendations to the Board.
I invite you to join with me in extending a warm welcome to Dr. Mary Boyd as she prepares to begin her presidency at the start of the 2022-2023 academic year. We look forward to all she will do, in partnership with colleagues across the institution and beyond, to further Emmanuel College as an engine of possibility in the lives of students and as a force for progress and peace in our society.
Sincerely,
Margaret L. McKenna ’83
Chair, Emmanuel College Board of Trustees
Co-Chair, Presidential Search Committee
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