SARASOTA, Fla.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--New College of Florida, the state of Florida’s honors college for the liberal arts and sciences, has named Dr. Donal O’Shea, an internationally recognized mathematician, as its fifth president. O’Shea, who currently serves as Dean of Faculty and Vice President for Academic Affairs at Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, Massachusetts, succeeds Dr. Gordon E. “Mike” Michalson, Jr., who will retire on July 1, 2012.
In announcing the appointment, New College of Florida Board Chair Bob Johnson stated, “Donal O’Shea’s intellectual abilities, his personal values and his visionary determination to make New College a national leader in the liberal arts really stood out from the other candidates we interviewed for the presidency and made him a natural fit to lead New College.”
O’Shea’s appointment was approved by the New College Board of Trustees following a national search led by Archer~Martin Associates of Nantucket, MA. The appointment must be approved by Florida’s Board of Governors, which meets in Jacksonville, Fla., on March 22, 2012.
“Born fifty years ago in a decade of extraordinary social and intellectual ferment, New College of Florida has established itself as one of the world’s most innovative and distinguished liberal arts colleges,” said O’Shea in accepting the position as New College’s fifth president. “I am pleased and honored to now count myself a member of this extraordinary community of scholars, students, staff and supporters. And I look forward to working with all to ensure that New College thrives as a beacon of educational excellence and innovation for the next half century.”
A Harvard-trained mathematician and an avowed advocate of liberal arts education, O’Shea has been at Mount Holyoke since 1980. He earned his undergraduate degree in mathematics from Harvard University and his master’s and doctorate from Queens College, Ontario, a prominent Canadian Research I university. He has been a visiting professor at major universities in the UK, the US, Germany and France. O’Shea has six monographs to his credit and numerous research articles.
O’Shea succeeds Dr. Gordon E. “Mike” Michalson, Jr., who has served as president of New College since July 2001. At his retirement, Michalson will have served as chief administrative officer of New College for 16 of the past 20 years.