Western Michigan community 'excited' for future with new president

By Madison Bennett | MLive

KALAMAZOO, MI - Western Michigan University faculty, staff and students are looking forward to seeing what the future holds with Edward B. Montgomery as their new president.

"I'm just really happy to see what he can do and really excited to see what he will do in his time at WMU," said Thye Fischmann, WMU Student Association president and representative for undergraduate students on the presidential search committee.

Montgomery was named as the university's ninth president by the WMU Board of Trustees in a unanimous vote during a special session Wednesday, April 12. He will replace John Dunn, who is retiring after 10 years as president.

"We had a really good, super short list but he just, he wows you," Suzan Ayers, professor at WMU and member of the search committee, said about Montgomery. "He walks into the room and he's vibrant."

Evelyn Winfield-Thomas, executive director of institutional equity and another member of the 22-person presidential search committee, said they were looking for a candidate who would take them to the "next level of accomplishment" and found that in Montgomery.

Montgomery, a Harvard educated labor economist who has held posts with the administrations of Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, is a dean and professor of economics at Georgetown University's McCourt School of Public Policy.

His son, Edward J. Montgomery or E.J., is currently a senior studying finance at WMU. His father said E.J. a testament to the university.

"He's blossomed as a student, he's blossomed as an individual and so for us, that's what a university is about, creating in undergraduates ... new opportunities, new ways of looking at the world, letting them reach their potential," Montgomery said.

E.J. Montgomery said he had no idea that his father was in the running to be president of the university he attends until about a week ago, after he was offered the job. He said he had joked with his dad over the summer that he should look into the opening, and that it has been a surreal experience since finding out he got the job.

"I've told my dad he has high expectations, everyone that I've ever heard talk about Dunn said nothing but great things about him, so hopefully he'll be able to continue that," E.J. Montgomery said.

Montgomery takes over as WMU president Aug. 1. Dunn, who will retire June 30, will stay on for a year as president emeritus, taking on special assignments from his successor.

This post originally appeared April 12, 2017 on MLive.com.