MAC SLAVIN EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
After an extensive search, Wartburg College has announced Darrel D. Colson will be the 17th president of the college.
“I have long held a very high opinion of Wartburg College. As I became more deeply involved in this search process, learning more and more about Wartburg’s specific mission to educate students whose leadership and service express their learning and faith, I knew that our values, mine and Wartburg’s, were a perfect match,” Colson said in a press release released to students Monday morning.
Colson, currently serving as provost and dean at Centenary College in Shreveport, La., will take office July 1.
As a candidate the 53-year old Colson met with current faculty, staff and students during a campus visit on April 22 and 23.
“I relished my time on campus, hearing the pride people take in Wartburg and listening to their concerns, hopes and dreams for the future,” he said in the release.
Colson is a Louisiana State University graduate. He studied English, history, philosophy and political science before becoming a college professor. He received his masters from Vanderbilt University and his doctorate in philosophy from Western Carolina University.
He has taught at Louisiana Scholars’ College, Pepperdine University and Centenary College.
In April 2008, Jack R. Ohle resigned his Wartburg presidency to become president of Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter, Minn. William Hamm is currently fulfilling the role of interim president.
Colson is married and has two children.
Look for more information regarding the new president in a new edition of the Trumpet, which will be released May 11.