Kent John Chabotar

Kent John Chabotar has been president of Guilford College in Greensboro, North Carolina, since 2002, and is a professor of political science.  He serves on the governing boards of the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities (NAICU), North Carolina Independent Colleges and Universities, Community Foundation of Greater Greensboro (where he is also the treasurer) and the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art Foundation, and is on the appeals committee of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools.

From 1991 to 2002, Chabotar was vice president for finance and administration and treasurer at Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine, and senior lecturer in the Department of Government and Legal Studies.  Previously, Chabotar was on the faculty of education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, associate professor of management at the University of Massachusetts, and assistant professor of political science and coordinator of public administration programs at Michigan State University.  He received the Fussa Distinguished Teaching Award at Harvard and the Distinguished Educator Award for teaching excellence at Michigan State University.  His consulting and teaching activities have focused on strategy and finance in colleges and universities including Allegheny College, California Lutheran University, College of Wooster, College of Saint Benedict, Edgewater College, Malone University, St. John’s University, Northeastern University, University System of Georgia, and West Virginia University.

At Harvard, he has served on the faculties of summer executive programs sponsored by the Harvard Institutes on Higher Education since 1983, including the Institute for Educational Management (IEM), Management Development Program (MDP), Management and Leadership in Education (MLE), and the Seminar for New Presidents.  Based in part on his higher education teaching, the Council of Independent Colleges gave Chabotar its Academic Leadership Award in 2003.  He also taught at the Museum Leadership Institute at the University of California at Berkeley from 1987-2003, and at the Getty Center in Los Angeles until 2010.  He has taught AGB’s annual Seminar for New Trustees since 2000.

Chabotar is the author of many books, monographs, and articles.  Recent publications include a book on strategic finance for the Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges (2006) and the articles “Coping with Financial Distress” in Trusteeship (2007), “Blue Sky Thinking” in CASE Currents (2007), and “Will Your Institution Pass the Financial-Responsibility Test?” in Trusteeship (2011).  The latter grew out of his work as chair of a NAICU national task force to improve the test related to federal financial aid funds.  AGB published a booklet on strategic budgeting in 2007 as part of its continuing series of Board Basics as well as an updated version of Financial Responsibilities in 2009.  Chabotar has spoken on the economic crisis at conferences and events since 2008 sponsored by ACE, College Board, Council of Independent Colleges, NAICU, TIAA-CREF, AGB, and other higher education and nonprofit organizations.  His commentaries on budget decision-making and campus communications in tough economic times have appeared in Inside Higher Ed (2009), the Chronicle of Higher Education (2009), EDUCAUSE Review (2009), and Change (2010).

Chabotar holds a BA degree in political science, magna cum laude, from Saint Francis University in Pennsylvania and MPA and PhD degrees in public administration from the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University.