Northampton Community College Names Next President

A former Lehigh University executive and the current president of a small liberal arts college in southwestern Ohio, was today named the new president of

Mark Erickson worked in Lehigh University’s administration for 15 years, from 1990 until 2005, when he left to become president of Wittenberg University in Springfield, Ohio.

His appointment as Northampton’s new president was approved by unanimous vote of the college’s Board of Trustees this afternoon, according to a college news release.

Erickson will become the fourth president of Northampton, succeeding after 36 years at the college, the last nine as president.

Erickson was selected from a field of more than 60 candidates from across the United States and around the world.  The screening committee included students, faculty, staff, alumni and members of the community.

“We’re delighted with our selection of Dr. Erickson.,” said Tom Doluisio, the former Bethlehem Area School District Superintendent who chaired the search committee.

“His experience and credentials are outstanding and, based on the process we put him through, his personality and temperament seem to be a perfect fit with the NCC culture,” said Doluisio, who was quoted in a Northampton news release.

Erickson was dean of students at from 1990 to 1999, associate vice president and executive assistant to the president from 1999 to 2001, and vice president for administrative and government affairs from 2001 to 2005. Lehigh is also where Erickson earned his own doctorate in educational leadership and won the Matthew W. Gaffney Award for Academic Excellence.

“I’m honored, humbled and thrilled to be selected as the fourth president of Northampton Community College,” Erickson said, through a news release. “I have long admired Northampton’s student-centered focus and entrepreneurial spirit and feel privileged to follow in the footsteps of Bob Kopecek and Art Scott, both of whom I would count as friends.”

A native Nebraskan, Erickson earned a bachelor’s degree in American history at Princeton University and a master’s degree in education at Harvard University where he specialized in administration, planning and social policy.  He pursued additional studies in world religions and pastoral care at Harvard Divinity School.

Erickson’s wife, Lin, was the associate dean of community education at Northampton before she became the executive director of the Da Vinci Science Center in Allentown.