Pioneering Cellist to Head Wheaton College
NORTON, Mass.
Wheaton’s board of trustees has appointed Dr. Ronald Crutcher, provost of Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, as the seventh president of Wheaton College. In taking Wheaton’s highest post, Crutcher becomes the first African American to lead the national liberal arts college. It will be the latest pioneering role for the cellist who has achieved national recognition in the classical chamber music field, an area in which African Americans have been largely absent.
“From the beginning of the search process we have sought a leader of vision, intellectual vitality and exceptional energy to serve as Wheaton’s seventh president,” said Patricia A. King, chair of the board of trustees. “In Dr. Crutcher we have found that person. The board of trustees has unanimously agreed that his remarkable leadership experience and his accomplishments will allow him to capitalize on the college’s extraordinary momentum to sustain and reinforce Wheaton’s distinctive character and fulfill its vision and potential.”
Crutcher’s appointment as president begins July 15. He will replace Dr. Dale Rogers Marshall, who led the college’s most ambitious fund-raising effort, raising over $90 million for faculty salaries, student scholarships, academic programs and new facilities.
“The college has made tremendous progress over the past 12 years with the inspirational and visionary leadership of President Marshall, and I look forward to the challenges of continuing the momentum and to serving as one of its primary advocates,” Crutcher said.
A Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Miami University, Crutcher pursued graduate studies at Yale University as a Woodrow Wilson and Ford Foundation Fellow. In 1979, he was the first cellist to receive the doctor of musical arts degree from Yale. He made his Carnegie Hall debut in March 1985 and currently performs in this country and Europe with the Klemperer Trio. His publications include journal articles on valuing cultural diversity in the arts, chamber music and Black classical music.
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