Minneapolis College of Art and Design President Sanjit Sethi to depart after six years

Minneapolis College of Art and Design President Sanjit Sethi announced in an email earlier this month that he will be stepping down at the end of 2024-25 academic year, shortly after finishing his sixth year at the college.

“As I start my sixth year as President of MCAD, I want to share some important news with you,” he wrote in an email to MCAD Alumni on Sept. 3. “After five transformative years, the Board of Trustees and I have come to an understanding that our vision for the future of the college has evolved and diverged. Consequently the 2024/25 academic year will be my final year at MCAD.”

In his email, he reflected on his tenure, including the institution’s response to COVID-19 and distance learning, acquisition of student housing at the Hive to accommodate a growing student body, and the continuation of the annual MCAD art sale, which went virtual in 2020 and 2021, and returned to in-person action in 2022.

Sethi started at MCAD on July 15, 2019, replacing former president Jay Coogan.

“I am grateful for the opportunity to work with the MCAD community and am immensely proud of what we have achieved together,” Sethi told the Star Tribune. “MCAD is an extraordinary college, and its strength comes from the creativity and optimism of its students, staff, faculty, and alumni.”

There was much enthusiasm around Sethi’s hiring, particularly about making MCAD a landmark destination for neurodiverse students, decolonizing and equity and inclusion.

“There was a lot of exciting words, but really a real lack of sort of trust of the current expertise of staff and faculty who were there,” said Jacob Yeates, MCAD assistant professor and alumni, “and a lot of convoluted decisions that were made without a lot of valuable input from people who had been there much longer than Sanjit had.”

COVID-19 also threw a wrench into things, something that Yeates stressed Sethi handled well, but was a challenge nonetheless.

“I don’t think anybody would have an easy time during deep COVID or during the uprising in Minneapolis,” Yeates added. “But I think that just sort of heightened, again, this sort of disconnect between the needs of a lot of long-standing staff, faculty and students and what Sanjit seemed to believe were these sort of ways of solving the problems that he wanted to tackle.”

In late 2019, shortly after his hiring, Sethi explained his vision in an in-depth Q&A with the Star Tribune.

“[The most pressing issues] are everything from gentrification to community policing to climate change,” he told the Star Tribune. “MCAD’s role is: How do we begin addressing the most critical issues of our time? Frankly that’s got to be part of the work we do in educating the next generation of cultural leaders.”

MCAD’s Board Search Committee will begin a national search for the next president, working with executive search firm Isaacson, Miller, along with the MCAD community.

“We thank President Sethi for his dedication for the past five years, as he led the college through the challenges of COVID, acquired a new building for much-needed student housing, reimagined the campus of the future, and advocated for greater access to an art-and-design education,” said Board Co-Chairs Chris Barry and M.E. Kirwan in a joint statement.

Sethi is the 19th president in MCAD’s 139-year history, previously serving for four years as inaugural director of George Washington University’s Corcoran School of the Arts & Design, and previously holding leadership positions at Santa Fe Art Institute, Memphis College of Art and California College of the Arts.