Janet Steinmayer, Lesley University president since 2019, issued a statement that she will step down at the end of the fiscal year, June 30, 2026.
She cited accomplishments such as completing a $100 million campus renovation “using funds from the sale of real estate we no longer needed to create a beautiful and modern environment in which we can all work, learn, and live better.”
She also cited creating a Strategic Framework focused on “Education, Mental Health and Wellbeing, Art + Design, Liberal Arts & Business, and the Threshold Program,” a non-degree track for neurodiverse students. She highlighted a guaranteed internship program for students and improvements to administrative processes.
She said the university had used analytics and data to create a “strong financial framework” for the future.
She said she had told Lesley’s board a year ago she would not renew her contract at the end of this year, “Given where we are in this work, how all-consuming it has been in my life and the pull of life goals I have yet to pursue.”
She was president during challenging times for universities and colleges, including the impact of COVID-19, declining enrollment and questions about the value of higher education. She faced specific challenges of her own, including three votes of no confidence, faculty disgruntlement and protests about restructuring and layoffs, and just last week a vote by core faculty authorizing a strike.
Lesley’s board of trustees issued a separate statement saying in part that “Janet will have boldly led the Lesley community through one of the most challenging and, thanks to her vision, transformative, periods in its history.” It said Joanne Kossuth, Lesley’s chief operations officer, will be interim president as of July 1.
The board statement did not say when it would start a search for a new president, calling it “a unique time” in Lesley’s history and saying it would wait “for the right time to focus on a presidential search.”
This story will be updated.
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