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Eureka's President

J. David Arnold, Ph.D., is serving in his seventh year as president and professor of psychology at Eureka College.  During his tenure at Eureka, the College created a strategic plan entitled “Growth with Integrity” that has achieved record enrollments and balanced budgets while reducing tuition/tuition discount and increasing net tuition revenue; launched the Ivy Project to achieve campus improvements, including the construction of a new residence hall; and doubled the percentage of alumni giving.  Other recent achievements include the expansion of faculty resources, creation of visiting scholar and executive programs, and the implementation of a new organizational leadership program to attract non-traditional students. Building on a legacy of creating servant leaders, a Reagan Forward initiative was implemented in 2008 to focus on leadership and service—related events include a national academic conference and hosting dozens of guest lectures on servant leadership, including one by Mikhail Gorbachev.

Dr. Arnold formerly was vice president for academic and student affairs at Missouri Western State College, St. Joseph, Mo. He also served as provost at St. John Fisher College and as a dean and grants officer at Clarion University. He started his academic career teaching psychology and writing at St. Lawrence University, a residential liberal arts college where he was tenured and promoted before becoming an associate dean. As an academic leader and author, Dr. Arnold has focused on forging connections between the curricular, co-curricular, and extracurricular spheres of students’ experience in learning communities, engaging faculty in strategic planning, and promoting the “teacher-scholar” model of faculty professional development at liberal arts institutions.

          
A native of Lancaster, Pa., and the first in his family to graduate from college, Dr. Arnold completed his undergraduate degree with honors at Bloomsburg University (formerly Bloomsburg State College), graduate work at the University of New Hampshire, and summer post-doctoral study at the Institute for Educational Management at Harvard University. A self-described movie buff and nature enthusiast, Dr. Arnold and his wife Katherine have three grown children and twin granddaughters.