University of Richmond names new president

Kevin F. Hallock to replace Ronald A. Crutcher

Published March 4, 2021 by Sydney Lake

The University of Richmond announced Thursday its next president will be Kevin F. Hallock, who currently serves as dean and professor of strategy and business economics at Cornell University’s SC Johnson College of Business. 

He will succeed Ronald A. Crutcher, who in September 2020 asked the board of trustees to begin a search for his successor, with plans to have a new president take office no later than July 1, 2022.

Hallock will join the university in fall 2021 and also serve as a professor of economics in the Robins School of Business and have affiliated faculty appointments in the Jepson School of Leadership Studies and the Philosophy, Politics, Economics and Law program in the School of Arts and Sciences. Following his term as president, Crutcher and his wife, Betty, will travel to Berlin for a sabbatical year and he will then return to the university as a professor.

Hallock earned his bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and his master’s degree and doctorate from Princeton University, both in economics. He started his career as an assistant professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and joined the Cornell faculty in 2005. In 2018, he was appointed as dean of the SC Johnson College of Business.

“Kevin is a dynamic and hard-working leader with a strong track record of building consensus and bringing people together around a shared vision and purpose,” Paul Queally, rector of the board of trustees, said in a statement. “We are confident that as president he will help us to continue to strengthen our leadership position among liberal arts institutions nationally.”

Hallock has also served as chair of the Department of Economics in the College of Arts and Sciences and in the School of Industrial and Labor Relations (ILR) at Cornell, where he later served as dean. His research focuses on gender pay gap, compensation design, compensation in nonprofits, executive compensation, layoffs, labor market discrimination and disability in labor markets. He has authored or edited 11 books and more than 100 publications. 

“From the creative work and research among the faculty, the intellectual energy and curiosity of the community and the intense focus on the holistic development of students and care for their well-being ─ Richmond drew me in, and I couldn’t look away,” Hallock said in a statement.

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