Longtime Carleton prof returning to Northfield as next president of St. Olaf

Susan Rundell Singer will take over as the next St. Olaf College president this summer, the first woman to hold the job at the liberal arts school in Northfield.

The transition will mark a significant change for the college, which has been led by President David Anderson for nearly 17 years. Anderson is set to retire at the end of this school year.

Rundell Singer, who taught in Northfield for about 30 years and raised three children there, said: "I've been growing in leadership with other wonderful experiences, and the opportunity to come home and put all of that to work at a place I love is absolutely amazing."

"Surreal is the way I've been describing it," she said, adding that she keeps thinking she'll wake up from a dream.

St. Olaf College was founded in 1874 by Norwegian Lutheran immigrants and today enrolls roughly 3,000 students who report a wide range of religious backgrounds, according to the college's data.

Rundell Singer currently works as the vice president for academic affairs and provost at Rollins College in Winter Park, Fla., a private school that also enrolls about 3,000 students. She is also a professor in the college's biology department.

Before taking the job in Florida, Rundell Singer worked as the director for the Division of Undergraduate Education at the National Science Foundation, an agency that aims to advance science and engineering research. She spent 30 years as a professor at Carleton College, also based in Northfield, and led that school's Perlman Center for Learning and Teaching.

"In Susan, we have found a president with a national reputation, local ties, impeccable credentials, and the experience to lead St. Olaf to new levels," Board of Regents Chair Jay Lund said in a statement. "Our search committee put their hearts into this process, and we couldn't be more thrilled with the result."

Rundell Singer said she intends to finish the semester at Rollins College, while creating her own version of a "St. Olaf 101" course, as she seeks to learn more about the campus community.

She said one of her first priorities is getting to know the students, faculty and community members as she looks for potential new partnerships.

"I'm really interested in helping St. Olaf tell its story and helping students tell their story about how all the different dimensions of their learning in and out of the classroom roll up into something that is much bigger than a degree or a list of experiences," Rundell Singer said. "It's a coherent, intentional approach to learning that really prepares them for the many demands they're going to see in both work and in life."