Mount President Trainor to retire next year
Mar. 14—Mount St. Mary's University President Timothy Trainor announced Tuesday that he will retire in the summer of 2024.
Trainor, the Mount's president since 2016, said in a video message that he and his team "accomplished much of what we set out to do — stabilize the university by growing enrollments, raising funds for critical projects and implementing a strategic plan to guide us to a thriving future."
The university hopes to launch a national search for Trainor's replacement this spring, he said in the video. Officials plan to review and vet candidates in the fall and make a selection before the end of this year.
That way, the next president can work with Trainor for several months in early 2024 before taking over in the summer.
In a news release Tuesday, Mount officials wrote that Trainor "expertly guided the university through two destabilizing periods: the leadership crisis that brought him to the Mount and the pandemic."
Trainor, a former brigadier general who worked as the academic dean at West Point, joined the Mount in August 2016. His tenure began shortly after the school's former president, Simon Newman, resigned amid criticism for comments he made about struggling first-year students.
Newman had pushed a program that aimed to identify students who might not succeed at the university, help them withdraw and offer them tuition refunds. Doing so could boost the school's retention rates, he said at the time.
"This is hard for you because you think of the students as cuddly bunnies, but you can't," Newman was quoted as saying in the university's student newspaper, The Mountain Echo. "You have to drown the bunnies ... put a Glock to their heads."
The quote stirred up national controversy, and Trainor aimed to stabilize the university in the aftermath.
Trainor said in Tuesday's video message that he was also proud of the way the Mount had weathered the COVID-19 pandemic. The school retained its entire workforce and welcomed its largest first-year class ever in the fall of 2020, according to Tuesday's news release.
Since Trainor's tenure began, the Mount's undergraduate enrollment has grown by 12%, the release said. The university has added new majors, including data science and cybersecurity.
Trainor's video message also highlighted growth in the university's athletics programs, which have expanded from 16 Division I NCAA teams to 24 since he took over. The number of student athletes has doubled, he said.
The Mount's Catholic seminary has grown, too, and has been recognized as the country's largest.
"We did this together, as an incredibly strong and resilient community," Trainor said in the video, "and for that, I will be forever grateful."
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