Leaders of the Student Association said they are optimistic about GW’s selection for the next university president.
SA President Lamar Thorpe, a senior who was the only student member on the Presidential Search Committee, said that he was in line with the committee’s unanimous decision to select Johns Hopkins Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs Steven Knapp as President Stephen Joel Trachtenberg’s successor and GW’s 16th president.
“I was impressed by his professionalism,” Thorpe said. “He is going to take GW to the next level. I am really excited about him.”
Thorpe said he conducted a survey last year to collect information about what students would like to see in their next University President. Thorpe said he used the information obtained from the survey to make his decision on Knapp.
“They wanted someone who was an academic,” Thorpe said. “When you want someone to be an academic, you need a Ph.D.”
According to Thorpe, the other members of the committee also wanted an academic.
“We were looking for change,” Thorpe said. “It was time for something new.”
SA Executive Vice President Josh Lasky, a senior, said that GW was “due for an academic” and he hopes Knapp will listen to student leaders at GW.
“I hope that he will work closely to develop student leaders here at GW,” Lasky said
One of the biggest issues Knapp will have to see through during his presidency is GW’s 20-year Campus Plan for on-campus development.
SA Sen. Nicole Capp (CCAS-U), who is a student leader for Campaign GW, an initiative established to promote GW’s Campus Plan, said Knapp’s extensive work in fundraising and academia will be a great benefit to Campaign GW.
“If anything, Knapp’s approach and success with fundraising should be perfectly in line with the efforts of Campaign GW and Executive Vice President and Treasurer Louis Katz’s work on the Campus Plan,” said Capp, a sophomore. “We are essentially vying to raise funds that are non-tuition driven, through the commercialization of Square 54, which will induce development on a ground-breaking research science center.”
Knapp will assume the presidential post in August.
