Following Dr. David Holmes Swinton’s retirement last week as president of 141-year-old Benedict College, he and his wife, Patricia, are taking a long, 45-day vacation.
And then he plans to return to the retirement home that he built eight years ago in Columbia, South Carolina, and to quickly turn his attention to his first love: researching, writing and speaking about public policy issues that impact African-Americans.
“As president emeritus, I really don’t have any major duties,” Swinton says with a chuckle in an interview with Diverse shortly before his June 30 departure. “The president emeritus job, I guess, is to look old and act cute.”
Just talk to faculty, students and administrators at Benedict College, and it becomes increasingly clear that Swinton will be missed. He is a fixture at the institution and it’s easy to understand why.
The no-nonsense administrator has been at the private, Baptist-affiliated historically Black liberal arts college for 23 years, making him the longest-serving president in the school’s history.
College administrators say that after more than two decades of service, he has earned the right to relax and spend time with his eight grandchildren who live about two blocks away from Swinton and his wife.
“I did plan for this to be my last professional job if it was successful,” says the Harvard-trained economist of his time at the college. “I intended to retire from this position.”
