Dr. Richard Cosentino selected as President of Lander University

Dr. Richard Cosentino selected  as President of Lander University

Dr. Richard Cosentino, vice chancellor for Finance and

Administration at the University of North Carolina (UNC) at Pembroke, has been named

president of Lander University. Jack Lawrence, chair of Lander’s Board of Trustees, said

Cosentino was the unanimous choice of the trustees, when they met this afternoon.

He will become Lander’s 13th president, succeeding Dr. Daniel Ball, who will

retire on June 30 after serving 15 years as president. Only three other presidents,

including the school’s founder, the Rev. Samuel Lander, have served longer.

Cosentino was one of three finalists nominated by the Presidential Search

Committee following a nationwide search that began early last spring. The executive

search firm of Coleman Lew + Associates, of Charlotte, N.C., assisted in the selection of

potential candidates.

Lawrence said, “Dr. Cosentino possesses an impressive academic background,

considerable experience in higher education and diverse skills that align with the current

and future needs of Lander.” He added, “He also shares our commitment to Lander’s

mission of providing a challenging and rewarding education to qualified students.”

Cosentino described himself as very excited about becoming Lander’s next

president. He said he was impressed with members of the board and the faculty and

students that he met with during his visit to campus. He said, “Lander is strong and

bright. I’m joining a winning team.” He said he has a lot of thoughts on positioning the

university to be successful in what he characterized as a very challenging environment

for higher education.

He found Greenwood to be a very welcoming community for his family. “The

people were very friendly.” He and his wife, Jessica, have two children: Emily, 18, a

freshman at North Carolina State University, and John, 14, who is in high school.

Cosentino has a bachelor’s degree in business administration with a major in

finance and a master’s in strategic financial planning from the University of Baltimore, in

Baltimore, Md. He received a doctorate in engineering from The George Washington

University in Washington, D.C.

He has over 20 years of experience in higher education as a senior administrative

and financial executive and a background in fundraising, enrollment management and

government relations.

In his position at UNC at Pembroke, Lander’s new president-elect is the chief

financial officer and senior administrator of the university He also serves as the adviser to

the chancellor and the school’s Board of Trustees on all matters associated with fiscal and

administrative issues.

Prior to UNC, Cosentino served as an assistant and an associate vice president for

Finance and Administration at The George Washington University, and as vice dean for

Finance and Administrative Affairs in the university’s School of Engineering and

Applied Science. He has also worked as senior budget manager at Johns Hopkins

University School of Medicine, and as director of Budget and Finance and senior

administrator at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, both schools in

Baltimore.

He taught graduate-level courses at George Washington, including organizational

behavior, the management of technical organizations, human resources management and

fundamentals of systems engineering.

Cosentino’s term as Lander’s president will begin on July 1.