Dan Kelting speaks at Berkeley Green in Saranac Lake in December 2020. (Enterprise photo — Aaron Marbone)

PAUL SMITHS — Paul Smith’s College is in the midst of a presidential administration change for the fifth time in two years.

Effective Friday, the college President Nicholas Hunt-Bull returned to being PSC’s provost, a position he held for seven years prior to being appointed president in April.

Dan Kelting, who currently is the executive director of the college’s Adirondack Watershed Institute and PSC’s vice president for research, has been named interim president by the Paul Smith’s College Board of Trustees as the board prepares to conduct a national search for a new president.

Kelting said he was “honored and humbled,” and a bit surprised, when the board asked him on Friday to be the interim president. He said he was not told a reason for the administration change.

Hunt-Bull will be remaining with the college, but not in the position he had planned. In August, when he was appointed as the college’s 13th president, he had said he had wanted to bring “stability” to campus after the fast turnover of several presidents before him. He said he felt he owed it to the college to be in the leadership for years.

“I have no comment at this time,” Hunt-Bull wrote in an email on Friday.

PSC Board of Trustees Chairman Mark Dzwonczyk thanked Hunt-Bull for “providing stability during the previous leadership transition.”

“Given the volume of new academic programs and partnerships underway that demand the full attention of a seasoned chief academic officer, we are pleased that Nicholas is staying on managing the academic programs,” Dzwonczyk said in a statement. “We are grateful for Nicholas’s leadership and are looking forward to continuing to work together.”

Kelting has been in the college’s Forestry & Life Sciences Department since 2003 in a variety of roles. Before that, he taught at North Carolina State University and Virginia Tech.

“I am thrilled to be able to lead this institution I love during this exciting time of transition and growth,” Kelting said in a statement. “I want to thank Nicholas for his leadership, partnership and friendship, and am looking forward to continuing to work with him.”

Kelting said he anticipates he’ll be able to work with Hunt-Bull very well.

Kelting was actually the chair of the search committee that recruited Hunt-Bull back in 2015. Kelting said they have a “solid relationship” and that Hunt-Bull was once his supervisor when he was in an interim dean position.

Kelting had not had the chance to talk with Hunt-Bull yet on Friday night. He said he was “anxious and excited” to “hit the ground running.”

Kelting was asked if he’ll throw his name into the national search for a permanent president.

“Hard to know. I’m taking one day at a time right now,” he said. “Maybe ask me in a few months.”

“I’m the interim, right? I’m serving a purpose for a set period of time,” he added. “I don’t know how long.”

Dzwonczyk said Kelting is “a proven administrator” who “has established the Adirondack Watershed Institute as a national leader.”

“Kelting is a seasoned administrator and an outstanding researcher and educator,” a press release from the college reads. “He’s also deeply committed to Paul Smith’s College.”

Kelting grew up in Malone, around 30 miles north of the Paul Smith’s campus, and has a lot of friends who went to the college.

“It’s been near and dear to my heart for most of my life,” Kelting said.

When he became the college’s AWI executive director nearly 20 years ago, Kelting said the institute had no full-time staff and a $15,000 annual budget. Now, he said he’s grown it to a $3 million annual program with 14 full-time staff.

“I’ve raised millions of dollars in support of the program, including capital to build the building that we’re in,” he said. “Over that time period I’ve learned a lot.”

He said he has learned plenty of skills in academic administration there — applying for grant funding, supporting and rallying staff, and connecting with the regional community.

Kelting said his AWI team took the news “very well” and that they will meet Monday to discuss how things will work at the institute now that he’s the college interim president. He believes that having the AWI’s executive director leading the college is good for the institution.

In the past, he was also the interim dean for the natural resources management and ecology school, which at the time was the largest school at the college with the majority of faculty and students.

Kelting said he plans to focus on the college’s core programs, growing enrollment and supporting students so they stay at the college.

Catherine Lalonde has been serving as the college’s interim provost under Hunt-Bull. The status of her position at the college was not known as of press time Friday. PSC Faculty President Kendra Ormerod said she hoped the college would keep her on, as faculty have relied on her during the changing times at Paul Smith’s College.

“As interim provost, Dr. Catherine Lalonde has skillfully navigated PSC internal processes as well as our accrediting agencies to make very fast progress on key new academic initiatives,” Ormerod said in a statement. “She has worked tirelessly on an accelerated and demanding timetable. She also provided clear communication to faculty which was very needed these past eight months.”

She said she did not have “any information about the reason for this restructuring or the timing.”

In September 2020, Cathy Dove, PSC’s president of six years, retired. The board of trustees appointed Jon Strauss to serve as an interim president as it conducted a search. Scott Dalrymple became PSC’s 12th president in July 2021.

Dalrymple resigned in April of this year, saying an intermittent remote work arrangement he forged with the Board of Trustees wasn’t working out.

At the time, Hunt-Bull became the interim president in the unexpected administrative shift. In August, the PSC Board of Trustees voted unanimously to appoint him as their permanent pick.

“Certainly having a number of presidents is challenging. I think that certainly for faculty and staff, having rapid turnover in presidents is, at least at the surface, concerning,” Kelting said. “But … given the support I’ve already received from across the campus community today … I feel a lot of encouragement and support and gratitude that I’m willing to step up.”

“The past few years have been very dynamic at PSC and we have seen a lot of change,” Ormerod said. “This includes many positive changes and initiatives in the pipeline. But leadership changes like this always come with some disruption, which is why I am grateful that these role changes maintain the leadership of key individuals already on campus, including Drs. Kelting and Hunt-Bull. Our faculty also expect and strongly hope that PSC retains Dr. Catherine Lalonde, who has worked tirelessly in her tenure as interim provost to promote key academic initiatives and support our educators.”

Kelting said he looks forward to building on the college’s momentum and image of an institution with “unique programming and immersive experiences” that are “unmatched in the region and across the country.”

“The focus of the faculty remains on the quality of our academic programs and fostering a supportive and rigorous academic experience for our students,” Ormerod said. “We are a close community that cares about every employee and every student. We are optimistic that our community will only benefit from these leadership changes and look forward to increasing our academic reach across the state.”

In addition to administrative changes, the college is in the midst of a large-scale merger with the nonprofit organization Fedcap Group. In August, Hunt-Bull told the Enterprise the college was waiting for approval from its state and federal accreditors, and expected a response in November.

This partnership, if approved by the college’s accreditors, would involve the college sharing revenue with Fedcap; Fedcap providing the college with technological upgrades, financial stability and new programs; and potentially, the college developing satellite campuses outside of the Adirondack Park.