I'm newly retired and in the process of sorting through 40 years of books and papers! My professional life has been shaped by a variety of experiences, including my childhood in South Dakota, my experiences at rural and tribal colleges and universities, travels to Latin America and the South Pacific, nonprofit agency and board leadership, teaching undergrad and graduate students, and advocating for social justice. These experiences have taught me how to approach student concerns holistically and to trust the student’s instincts and my own. I seek to bring a diversity of viewpoints to find creative solutions to complex problems, whether that's in a large system workgroup or in a classroom.

I was educated at the University of Sioux Falls, graduating with a degree in Psychology, and Sioux Falls Seminary, where I served as a graduate teaching assistant and was awarded a Masters in Counseling. When I became a licensed as a Marriage and Family Therapist and Chemical Dependency Counselor, I provided clinical supervision and executive leadership to a large nonprofit organization that provided K-12 prevention education to an 18,000 student school district, outpatient treatment services, city/county detox services, county jail and state prison treatment programs, a halfway house for men coming out of treatment and the state’s first halfway house for women and their children. I returned to graduate school at South Dakota State University, where I was accepted into the Honor Society of Agriculture, Gamma Sigma Delta, and awarded a Doctorate of Philosophy. The field research for my dissertation, Higher Education in Rural America: A Study of Northern Plains American Indian and Non-Indian Attitudes, Aspirations, Expectations and Perceived Barriers, was conducted with over two hundred people living within a twenty-five-mile radius of Sinte Gleska University on the Rosebud Reservation, home of the federally recognized Rosebud Sioux Tribe. Chief Spotted Tail (Sinte Gleska), was noted for his interest in bringing education to his tribe.

In 2008, I came to the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities system to work with stakeholders across the system’s 54 campuses to develop, implement and assess academic programs and transfer policies and procedures. The Minnesota Legislature had just passed degree credit cap legislation, and my first assignment was working with the seven state universities and 30 colleges to reduce associate degree programs to 60 credits and baccalaureate degree programs to 120 credits. During my tenure I facilitated the system’s Transfer Governance Team, sat on the Policy Council, Graduate School Council, and the Transfer Pathway Coordinating Team, charged with improving student transfer through the development of 26 “Transfer Pathways” designed to guarantee acceptance of all associate-level and junior status for students transferring to the system universities.

Ron Cole, Ph.D., is the 23rd president of Allegheny College. As president, he leads the senior leadership team of the College to drive holistic student success and an interdisciplinary, 21st century education.

Under his direction, the College has implemented a bold Strategic Pathway that emphasizes five primary goals focused on academic excellence, broadened academic offerings with an emphasis on student engagement, community and economic development, a vibrant and inclusive campus and financial sustainability. The message has boosted student enrollment and resonated with benefactors, as Allegheny College’s largest and most ambitious campaign ever, “In for Allegheny: Our Pathway Forward,” launched in the 2024-25 semester has already shattered records for donor support in the College’s 210-year history.
After serving as a faculty member for 20 years, Dr. Cole became provost and dean of the college in 2015. He held a range of leadership positions (including department chair, faculty moderator and a member of the trustee diversity task force), and he chaired the natural science division, faculty council, the faculty review committee, and finance and facilities committee. As chief academic officer, Dr. Cole promoted data-informed change to improve student success that led to revisions to first-year curriculum and course sequencing in STEM and humanities fields and new structures to unify and advance holistic student advising.

He established student retention as a top collaborative priority at the College through the Gardner Retention Performance Management program, achieving a five percent increase in first-to-second year retention within two years. Dr. Cole planned and led strategic work to achieve operational savings while investing in new programs including Informatics, Business, Art/Science and Innovation and the Allegheny Lab for Innovation and Creativity.

Dr. Cole advanced diversity of faculty and the curriculum with an interdisciplinary cohort program in race, gender and/or social justice. He was recognized in 2021 by the Council of Independent Colleges with their Chief Academic Officer Award. As a teacher-scholar, Dr. Cole received the Allegheny College Thoburn Award for Excellence in Teaching and established an active student-focused undergraduate research program in the geosciences with more than $500,000 in funding from the National Science Foundation, National Geographic Society and the American Chemical Society. He was named by City & State PA to their 2022 Power 100 list and Trailblazers in Higher Education in 2023. He is a sought-after speaker and has authored more than 100 published articles and book chapters.
Dr. Cole is a proud alumnus of Allegheny College, having earned a B.S. in Geology in 1987. He received his M.S. and Ph.D. in Geological Sciences from the University of Rochester (NY).

Michael Benitez, Ph.D. is a nationally acclaimed educator in the field of diversity, equity, and inclusion in higher education, often called upon by colleges and universities, community organizations and corporations nationwide for his deep knowledge and practice of innovate equity and inclusion-based strategies and approaches to address some of higher education’s most pressing diversity, equity, and inclusion issues and challenges.

Over the past two decades, Benitez has served higher education in different capacities, including academic and student affairs; diversity, equity and inclusion; and teaching. He brings deep knowledge and experience working in and leading areas in student success, organizational leadership and culture, intercultural development, race and ethnicity, policy and practice, inclusive leadership and pedagogy, and institutional equity, and has authored book chapters and articles on identity development, cultural centers and ethnic studies, hip hop culture, institutional research and campus climates, and faculty development. Dr. Benitez has been featured in educational documentaries, contributed to online magazines, scholarly databases, books, and peer reviewed journals, is often invited by media outlets to conversations on issues of significance, and collaborates with leading national scholars and practitioners.

Dr. Benitez has assumed roles at several institutions throughout his career, including Penn State University, Dickinson College, Lafayette College, Grinnell College, and the University of Puget Sound. He completed both his B.S. and M.Ed. at the Pennsylvania State University (PSU), where he gained interest in pursuing doctoral studies as a TRIO student and McNair Scholar, his Ph.D. at Iowa State University, and has been recognized with multiple leadership and scholarly awards throughout his career, including the Iowa State University College of Human Sciences Alumni Achievement Award.

Dr. Benitez joined MSU Denver in 2019 as vice president for Diversity and Inclusion, where he also serves as an Associate Professor of Multicultural Education the School of Education. Dr. Benitez also serves on the Board of Directors for the National Association of Diversity Officers in Higher

Education (NADOHE), is highly engaged with the National Conference on race and Ethnicity (NCORE) and serves as a subject matter expert for Colorado Inclusive Economy (CIE).