The college’s recently departed vice president of communications joined University of Delaware’s College of Engineering as chief of staff Monday. The role is a lateral move from a position Kathryn Meier once held at the university, her alma mater.
Meier, who did not respond to a request for comment, stepped down from her Lafayette College post in March after just 11 months. Before transitioning to Drexel University and then Lafayette, she worked at Delaware for more than 12 years in a variety of offices and departments, including a brief stint as chief of staff in the university’s college of arts and sciences.
The search for her replacement, which began early last month, is being led by Provost Laura McGrane and Lafayette’s chief of staff, Scott Morse, who is serving as the communication division’s acting vice president for the second time in two years.
“I think anytime you serve on a search committee, through the whole process, you learn things,” said Morse, a division veteran and the only returning search committee member from the iteration that selected Meier. “You learn something new, something helpful, hopefully, something that you can utilize again in the future.”
When Meier was hired, she became the division’s first permanent leader since 2022. Her selection crowned a 10-month search that both went longer and started later than anticipated. Before her selection, one consultant filled the seat on an interim basis for over two years.
The college has engaged the same search firm, DSG Global.
“We’re looking for someone who really shows up,” college President Nicole Hurd said. “I think people see how myself and others on the team show up. We are really dedicated to being ubiquitous and all over the place and invested, and I can’t imagine a job where you could be anything other than that when you’re doing communications work.”
Hurd noted that the division, currently housed in the Alpha Building in Downtown Easton’s Centre Square, is working on plans to move back to campus. The timeline for the division’s move is unknown.
Higher Ed Ed • Apr 24, 2026 at 9:30 am
Ah… The Hurd Administration continues to try and normalize poor leadership and deflect responsibility. I truly hope the college can recover from the failure of her tenure–but until then I look forward to multiple communications regarding how the college’s credit rating stayed the same and a poor attempt to prop up her reputation by exclaiming “record high applications!” Unless the vast majority of those applicants are willing to pay over $90K a year (and they’re not) the numbers are irrelevant.
Distant, but interested, alumni • Apr 15, 2026 at 7:32 pm
Very interesting–this seems to be continuing the revolving door at the VP level. The implication from the quote from Pres. Hurd is that she didn’t show up, wasn’t ubiquitous, etc. Or maybe Hurd expects Lafayette to be as visible nationally as Harvard, University of Texas, UCLA, et al. Good luck with that for the next VP.
Ubiquity......nah • Apr 8, 2026 at 7:54 pm
Being ubiquitous is not something to aspire to, being present is. Ubiquity smacks of the culture of curation of the social media age, which is certainly performative but all too often, empty. If we are being truthful here, Hurd is present for athletics, and ubiquitous for the rest of the college constituencies.
Let Them Eat Cake • Apr 5, 2026 at 4:09 pm
“We’re looking for someone who really shows up,” college President Nicole Hurd said. “I think people see how myself and others on the team show up.”
Ha ha ha ha!! Said the President who is at this moment enjoying an extended trip to Paris in the middle of the semester, and has also brought most of her “team” along with her, as well as Provost McGrane and CPA Kahr, so they can all enjoy the opening of a bicentennial library exhibit.
What’s tuition again? $90,000 a year?
Oh, when will the nonsense stop??
Cur non • Apr 9, 2026 at 10:10 pm
Going to Paris is somehow a bad thing? Make it make sense! Paris matters academically, diplomatically, and symbolically. A college president may be meeting alumni, donors, partner institutions, study-abroad contacts, or cultural organizations. For a school like Lafayette, Paris also carries an obvious historical connection because of the Marquis de Lafayette and the college’s broader ties to French-American history. And yet for the bozo faculty who post anonymously here, international travel is now a bad thing? President Hurd is advancing Lafayette’s reputation, relationships, and opportunities for students rather than just going on personal travel. Deal with it.
Cur? • Apr 10, 2026 at 9:25 am
All of what “Cur non” says above is of course correct, but its conditions of possibility for being true are not sufficiently explored here. Try this. Restate Cur non’s claim “President Hurd is advancing Lafayette’s reputation, relationships, and opportunities for students rather than just going on personal travel,” but now add this part “but of course this would only really be true if President Hurd had actually positively contributed to the reputation, relationships, and opportunities for students…..” The “bozo” faculty are the ones who actually carry the real “reputation, relationships, and opportunities for students” at any college. And Cur non’s statement would also be truer if the president actually had the confidence of the majority of the faculty, but she doesn’t, no matter how she and the board try to spin the successful vote of no confidence. The comment above by “Cur non” reads like an artifactual inscription on the edifice of a statue of a long dead autocrat. Perhaps in twenty years, if we are able to retain the soul of the liberal arts at Lafayette, and not give way to more entrepreneurship curriculum, back door real estate classes, and AI, then perhaps we leopards will be able to look at such an inscription as reflecting the spirit of a college that, currently, seems hell bent on following a higher ed consulting playbook that is just like everyone else’s. Happy to be a bozo along with the bozo faculty on this one. And regarding Cur non’s imperative that the faculty look at the exorbitant amount of money being spent on this jaunt and just “deal with it,” this observer of Lafayette thinks the faculty already dealt with it, in a vote of no confidence.