We are pleased to report that Lafayette is doing incredibly well across the board under college President Nicole Hurd’s leadership. Applications have increased 28% since 2021 with a record 10,528 applicants for the Fall 2025 incoming class. Forbes’ list of the top U.S. colleges placed Lafayette in the top 12%. The Wall Street Journal rankings included the top 500 colleges and universities, and the list for liberal arts colleges placed Lafayette at #9 overall and #3 for top liberal arts colleges in the Northeast. Standard & Poor’s and Moody‘s credit rating services have reaffirmed our A+/A- and Aa3 ratings, respectively.
Yet, as you probably know, the college faculty met several weeks ago and approved a “No Confidence” motion against President Hurd’s leadership by a vote of 102-86 with 6 abstentions. This suggests that about 66 faculty members did not vote. Therefore, those who voted “No Confidence” represented less than 40% of the total 260 faculty members. This vote, in our view, led to a vindictive effort to discredit the president.
A faction of 10 faculty members led by Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies professor Mary Armstrong, sees the faculty as having “a uniquely central role” in the governance of the college. (Note, Professor Armstrong also signed the open letter after the 2016 presidential election – which had the effect of upsetting many alums and led to the creation of the ACL). We believe this faculty group saw their own self-importance beyond the point of reasonableness, refusing to see the need for the Board of Trustees to find a proper balance among disparate interests across the whole of the college community, including students, administration, parents, alumni/alumnae and faculty. The singular point is that the faculty have an important voice, but no more important than all the others in combination. During the review process, the new “strategic plan” was unanimously approved by the trustees, the Student Government, and the Alumni Association Board. The college staff approved the plan by an overwhelming 244-3 vote.
Fortunately for Lafayette, the Board of Trustees, under the outstanding leadership of Bob Sell (board chair), has unanimously approved a resolution endorsing complete confidence in President Hurd. This no-confidence vote by the faculty damages the college’s reputation, and it is important that we, as alumni, stand up and strongly support President Hurd and the Board of Trustees.
Stephen Benson, 1969
Jack Bourger, 1971
Bruce McDermott, 1969
William Messick, 1968
Bill Rappolt, 1967
Alden Siegel, 1960
Randy Thornton, 1967
This letter is signed on behalf of the Alumni/Alumnae Coalition of Lafayette. The Alumni/Alumnae Coalition of Lafayette is not directly affiliated with Lafayette College.
A Friend • Feb 27, 2025 at 10:50 am
Who are these older alums from a different era who proclaim they love Lafayette so much that they would stoop so low as to insidiously attack the motives and very essence of excellent and well respected faculty members, professors who love the college every bit if not more than this group of men. Men who all went there before it allowed in women.
Professors well thought of by their students who have helped build the College’s reputation .Professors they so foolishly attack with such ease over what they teach, professors who any college should be proud to have on its faculty. And then the other shallow thinkers they attract. ..or the same people under fictitious names.. who pile on in the comments with more subject matter and gender abuse.
It’s a very odd formulation that they say in their disclaimer that their alumni/ alumnae coalition is not directly” affiliated” with Lafayette. That suggests perhaps something deeper, like acting indirectly and behind the scenes as the administrations mouthpiece. The coalition has been very active spreading their pro administration messages that have nothing to do with the key facts in issue about competency and proper management of any organization. Thank you faculty, after agonizing over it, for making these inconvenient truths public when you were so disrespected.
All arguments over any issue are fair except the ad hominem ones. Sticking to the facts is critical thinking at its best. That’s what Lafayette taught me.
Lafayette Student • Feb 24, 2025 at 3:23 pm
Your random choice to single out Professor Armstrong is disappointing. While you mention the professors who led the motion, you fail to acknowledge that the vote of no confidence won amongst the professors. You can have your own opinion, but falling back on misogyny towards an entire academic department and a professor as accomplished as Professor Armstrong is dismissive and lazy.
A Professor • Feb 24, 2025 at 7:37 pm
I agree with the above point. Why was she singled out? Other professors signed both the open letter of 2016 and the no-confidence motion. Mary Armstrong is one of the most accomplished and respected professors at Lafayette. Students love her classes. Her co-authored book was published by MIT Press last year. Among other topics, she studies Victorian Literature and STEM pedagogy. A list of her publications and grants is too long to detail here. You can make your points without attacking individuals, especially when there is no cause.
Stem Genderstudies • Feb 25, 2025 at 4:57 pm
You left out other “publications” which are college history built, yet personally copyrighted by her.
The Lafayette College Queer Archives Project Digital Humanities Site, by Mary A. Armstrong
A discussion of the LGBTQ+ digital humanities site “The Queer Archives Project” at Lafayette College (Easton, PA), with links to oral history interviews and examples of archival artifacts. © Mary A. Armstrong. All rights reserved. Published originally by OutHistory in 2023.
An Alum • Feb 26, 2025 at 8:54 am
Professor Armstrong was not picked randomly; she was picked b/c she is the leader of a faction who purposely advanced this “no-confidence” vote with less than 40% of the faculty (NOT even close to a majority). This action badly damaged Lafayette ‘s public image illustrating for all to see that its faculty were at war with the Administration and the Trustees. How many parents of rising high school seniors across our country will want to send their child to Lafayette? How stupid could these 10 faculty be? And Mary Armstrong was the leader of the pack.
A Professor • Feb 26, 2025 at 2:17 pm
What evidence do you have that MA is the leader, other than the fact her last name begins with an A? What evidence is there that Lafayette’s reputation has been damaged? Calling the faculty sponsors of the motion “stupid” is like calling Meryl Streep and Robert DeNiro bad actors.
Higher Ed Ed • Feb 23, 2025 at 9:08 pm
TL;DR, a group of alumni known as “athletics guys” like the president who prioritizes athletics over everything else.
Shocking.
Joe • Feb 21, 2025 at 12:59 pm
This is absolute bullshit. This is lie. Time to pack your bags, Nicole.
Joe Whitman • Feb 22, 2025 at 8:20 am
I’d like to expand on my initial comment. First off, it’s unprecedented that a college president gets a No Confidence vote. This hardly ever happens because professors are smart enough to understand that they don’t always need to agree with their leader as long as the ship is getting steered towards the right direction.
Second, all that matters in this case is the faculty’s votes. It doesn’t matter what the students think or even admin. Neither parties are involved for this.
Third, Nicole should have been fired years ago when she offered a frustrated male professor a hug during a faulty meeting. She’s unprofessional and and unqualified. Also, her stunt of getting student athletes to support her before this vote happens was again unprofessional and pathetic.
Fourth,Bob Sell needs to go. Anyone trying to turn this place into an athletic school is delusional. There isn’t an actual D1 athlete here. I know this because they are here.
Lastly, do better journalism.
Stem Genderstudies • Feb 25, 2025 at 10:45 am
Athletics are proven builders of leadership and collaboration skills to be carried into industry and professions alongside lifetime fitness habits within obese America.
One question is whether D1 still makes sense. Top question is how LC can avoid the downsides of NIL and transfer portal departures.
What student/athlete wants to ride the bench due to incoming upperclassmen taking their starting jobs? Few. LC would truly differetiate itself by cracking this one.
Alum • Feb 24, 2025 at 1:06 pm
I’m willing to take all bets that the inner deliberations of the board at its meeting were not quite so one sided as the announced unanimous final vote in favor of Hurd would suggest. That’s how responsible boards operate. Surely there were a number of trustees whose background in businesses and running companies saw the problems raised by the faculty in their no-confidence motion as very legitimate concerns and serious infractions of the principles of good management and wise administration. Changes undoubtedly suggested by irate board members have been seen already. Like announcing she is finally , after a year and a half, starting the search for a new chief alumni affairs officer and top money raiser. This is one of the most critical jobs at any college and it is shocking it took board direction to start a search, even at this late date. Filling that role with an interim for over 18 months, and growing until a search is completed, which could take many more months, would have been viewed by many board members with their business backgrounds as really bad judgment. And at such a critical time.
Truth Seeking Alum • Feb 21, 2025 at 7:46 am
This may be your view, let’s call it a hardline view, a flawed view in the opinion of many other alumni who also care deeply about the College. The metrics you cite in your unwavering support of this president are indeed impressive, but they have little to do with her personal efforts or what she has brought to the College in her mere three and a half years there. The college has been in this uptick mode now for better than a decade and a half, beginning under prior excellent presidents.
And the metrics you cite reflect nothing about how she and her administration have been performing in the actual administration of the college on a daily basis, something the best qualified to judge are those seeing it day in and day out on campus, not you sitting at home, through the valued, respected and mature eyes and whose opinion should be highly valued, namely the faculty.
These professors who have been hired to teach our children how to learn, grow up and become worthy citizens indeed saw continuing flaws, major flaws, that they finally felt had to be brought to the attention of the Board and acted upon. They should be thanked and not condemned. In many ways, this is the most important metric for evaluating any president —working smoothly with a reasonable and dedicated faculty for the betterment of the college, which has been the golden rule of all prior presidents in the entire history of the college, and which this president, as the facts cited seem to establish, has a pattern of failing to do.
Further it is beyond contempt that you would to try by sly insinuation to denigrate the worthiness of any particular professor involved in the group that in good faith and respect for the institution that is Lafayette College brought the petition of no-confidence to the board. And you once again try to negate the power of the faculty no confidence vote by calling out the number of those who stayed home and did not vote, as if this vote is any different from any other vote in any democratic organization and in our democratic society. Like in national and state elections, those who vote carry the day and have the final say in any matter of governance.
The truth you varnish over is that the faculty does have “a uniquely central role” in the SHARED GOVERNANCE of the College, just as it has had since the College’s founding, along with the president and the trustees. All prior presidents and boards of trustees have recognized that principle and acted accordingly to win that respect and maintain that unique relationship.
The shame was that the administration would even attempt to bring the Strategic Plan to the board of trustees despite the specific rejection by the faculty rather than attempt to resolve the differences and that the board then blindly passed the Strategic Plan. In doing so, it added insult to injury by engaging in the subterfuge of saying the faculty vote against the Strategic Plan was disregarded because it was a “split vote.”
Name Required • Feb 21, 2025 at 2:15 pm
Interesting that the truth seeking alum does not have an identity or graduation year.
Stem Genderstudies • Feb 23, 2025 at 9:28 pm
You sound like Mary Legweak.