WESTMINSTER – McDaniel College president Joan Develin Coley announced at the April 18 Board of Trustees meeting that she plans to retire at the end of the next academic year, concluding 10 years at the helm of the 141-year-old liberal arts college.

Coley took office on October 20, 2000, as the eighth president and holds the distinction of being the college's first female president and first to be promoted from the faculty ranks. During the executive session of the April 18 Board of Trustees meeting, Coley announced that she will retire effective June 30, 2010.

Coley has spent her life in higher education, accumulating 40 years of experience in the classroom and in administration. Prior to her serving as McDaniel president, she served as provost for six years. She joined the college faculty in 1973 as Director of the Graduate Reading Program and was later promoted to serve as dean of Graduate Affairs and chair of the Department of Education.

"It has been my great fortune to spend almost all of my working life on this [McDaniel] college campus, a place I love and believe in with unreasonable passion," she said. "It is here that I came of age as an educator and here I will leave in 2010 having been educated by my colleagues on the faculty and the staff and by the Board."

Trustee and Alumna Mary Lynn Durham will serve as chair of the Presidential Transition Committee.

To learn more about this and other Board actions as well as the announcement of an endowed chair in honor of Professor Ethan Seidel, click here.