Wilkes University seeks a leader who can navigate pressures in higher education, increase accessibility and affordability and be a champion of the school in downtown Wilkes-Barre.
A presidential search committee plans to interview candidates in May, with the hope of having a new leader to start the academic year in August, said Bill Miller, chair of the university’s board of trustees.
“The landscape of higher education is challenging. So we're looking for someone who understands what is happening in higher education, as well as in the country, globally … overall,” he said in a wide-ranging interview with WVIA News this month.
The presidential search comes after the retirement announcement of President Greg Cant, which happened shortly after a student protest and the disclosure of an unexpected budget shortfall. Cant plans to retire in August.
Financial challenges
Colleges across the country suffer from declining enrollment, demographic shifts and rising costs. As of the fall, Wilkes had 5,489 total students — more than half of them graduate students. The total enrollment is slightly higher than totals over the last five years.
“The current landscape is one of the most challenging for all higher education,” Miller said. “It doesn't matter if you're Harvard or Princeton or if you're Wilkes or the University of Scranton.”
Tax forms for the fiscal year ending May 2024, the most recent available to the public, show Wilkes started the year with a $4 million surplus and ended with a $500,000 deficit.
Wilkes disclosed in October that it faced a budget shortfall of about $8 million. Miller attributed the shortfall to underestimating health care costs and other places where Wilkes “could have done better.”
The school addressed the shortfall by identifying $2.4 million through new revenue opportunities and operational cost reductions, including personnel and departmental and administrative expenses; and securing $4.6 million in unrestricted gifts that provided support.
“We are now eight months into (fiscal year 2026) and continue working to manage expenses and strengthen our financial position as we address the remaining gap,” according to a statement from Wilkes.
Miller called the university’s financial position “very strong.”
“In the past two years, we've raised more money than we've ever raised from a philanthropy standpoint, and our endowment has never been bigger,” he said. “The endowment is over $75 million. The trustees and the key donors of the university are 100% behind Wilkes and funding it and making sure it is strong for the future. But [these are] challenging times.”
Increasing transparency
Cant became Wilkes’ seventh president in 2020, helping the college navigate the COVID-19 pandemic and its aftermath. After Cant’s retirement announcement, many of his responsibilities moved to David Ward, whose title changed from senior vice president and provost to chief operating officer and provost.
When students learned about Wilkes’ budget shortfall, they feared cuts to programs and increases to tuition. They asked for greater transparency and protested outside Cant’s office.
Miller said the school has “taken all the right steps” in giving students a greater voice and increasing transparency.
“We've built the right pathway to more interaction, to more feedback,” Miller said. “Dr. Ward is a very gregarious, very open, very straightforward leader who, I think, embraces that engagement with the students.”
Student government President Adam Butterwick helped organize November’s protest. Since then, the school has done a “great job” sharing plans with the student government board and “made the extra efforts to include students from many different perspectives at Wilkes in the presidential search committee,” he said this week.
“Overall, I have a very positive outlook on the future of the university given recent talks and events,” he said.
Other plans for Wilkes
Miller, a Wyoming Valley native and Wilkes graduate, has served on the board of trustees since 1999 and became chair in 2020. He is president of Galison|Mudpuppy, a New York City company that specializes in stationery, gifts and puzzles.
As Wilkes faces higher education challenges and will soon have a new president, Miller wants the university to ensure programs meet workforce needs, look at more options for adults and to continue supporting first-generation students.
He also wants to continue to increase the university’s presence in the community.
“We're coming up to our 100th year, and we believe that everybody deserves a shot at moving up in the world and getting educated, and I think to this day, we still provide that for the students of not just the Wyoming Valley … we have students from all over the country now,” Miller said.
“My husband went to Princeton, and I said, ‘America needs more Wilkes.’ Princeton's great, don't get me wrong. It's amazing, but we can have a greater impact on taking students and molding them and taking them to a different level in their life, and that's what it's about,” Miller said.
