Dr. M. Lee Pelton, the 12th president of Boston’s Emerson College, will be leaving his role at the end of May, marking an end to decades of work in higher education. His next step: leading The Boston Foundation as CEO and president.
Pelton – soft-spoken and calm – views his 10-year legacy at Emerson as a tangible one, citing how, under his leadership, the school “redeveloped the downtown corridor to create a sense of place for the city in a way that would recognize and reinforce the great diversity of this city,” Pelton said.
“The other legacy is that we have transformed, with the help of Tony’s leadership, a rather sleepy college into a global powerhouse,” Pelton said, referring to Dr. Anthony Pinder, the associate vice president of international and global engagement at Emerson. “We are present in all but one of the continents on the globe.”
Pelton said he viewed these achievements as his most significant. Meanwhile, Pinder said Pelton’s legacy goes beyond what’s quantifiable, mainly his leadership.
“It’s because he invites all realms of the leadership structure to participate in building and being innovative and all that,” Pelton said. “It’s one of the first places I’ve worked in almost 20-something years in higher ed where I have been an active participant in making change.
“And so when we think about what it took to redevelop the city and certainly the area in which we reside as a college or the global programs that we’ve done or reimagining the academic enterprise writ large, it’s because it was so many different people involved in that that he gave ear to and entertained our ideas about these various directions.”
Pelton became Emerson’s president in 2011, after leading Willamette University for 13 years. He has also served as dean of the college at Colgate University and Dartmouth College.
