A familiar face will be leading Lakeland University in rural Sheboygan County as David Black begins his second stint as the school’s president.
Lakeland’s board of trustees also opted against establishing a search committee and voted to remove the interim label from Black’s title. Black was president of Lakeland from 1989 to 1997 before leaving to become president of Eastern College in Pennsylvania. He retired from Eastern in 2013 but returned as interim president at Lakeland in January.
“We are very pleased with Dr. Black’s dedication, hard work, enthusiasm and implementation of innovative concepts in the past four months as interim,” said Barbara Gannon, Lakeland board chair. “He has rapidly renewed relationships in the community that he established during his first tenure as president, and also developed new connections that will benefit Lakeland.”
Black is the first person to serve as Lakeland president twice, although Josias Friedli was acting president in 1930-31 and 1950-51.
“The people I have spent recent months with at Lakeland have so many big ideas that I just do not want to leave,” Black said. “We have envisioned a liberal arts university whose students learn on campus and in this community’s great companies, all at the same time. Thus, we call it cooperative education, and everyone is better for it, especially our students, who will graduate with little or no debt. What a privilege this is for an educator.”
