APPLETON (NBC 26) — Lawrence University announced its new president on Thursday: Laurie A. Carter. The university said in a statement that Carter will become the school's 17th president on July 1.
Carter's appointment was announced at noon Thursday in a video introduction. Lawrence University says Carter, who is African American, will be the school's first BIPOC president.
Carter's experience with higher education includes holding key positions at The Juilliard School and Eastern Kentucky University before being named president of Shippensburg University in 2017.
The university said Carter spent 25 years in leadership positions at The Juilliard School, a prestigious private performing arts college in New York City. She was Juilliard’s first African American administrator and taught on the liberal arts and graduate faculty. She developed the institution’s student affairs program, launched diversity initiatives, created the Office of the General Counsel and co-created the Jazz Studies program.
She was vice president and general counsel and executive director of Jazz Studies when she left Juilliard in 2013 to lead the nation’s third-largest arts education department at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center. She later joined Eastern Kentucky University as executive vice president and university counsel. And in 2017, she was named president of Shippensburg.
The school's Presidential Search Committee, which included students and staff, unanimously recommended Carter to the Board of Trustees, who accepted the recommendation.
Carter is succeeding President Mark Burstein, who announced in September that he would step away at the close of this academic year after eight years leading the liberal arts college.
