{"id":208559,"date":"2026-06-02T17:02:13","date_gmt":"2026-06-02T17:02:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/208559\/"},"modified":"2026-06-02T17:02:13","modified_gmt":"2026-06-02T17:02:13","slug":"board-of-trustees-chairman-bows-out-jefferson-kirby-84-elected-as-successor-the-lafayette","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/208559\/","title":{"rendered":"Board of Trustees chairman bows out, Jefferson Kirby \u201884 elected as successor \u2013 The Lafayette"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Jefferson<\/a> <\/p>\n

Jefferson Kirby \u201884 will begin his two-year term as chair of Lafayette College\u2019s Board of Trustees on July 1. (Photo courtesy of Lafayette Communications)\n<\/p>\n

Lafayette College\u2019s Board of Trustees will see a new face at its helm beginning this summer.<\/p>\n

Trustees unanimously elected Jefferson Kirby \u201884 as chairman in May<\/a>, closing out the eight-year tenure of his predecessor and classmate Bob Sell \u201884. Kirby is set to serve a two-year term starting July 1.<\/p>\n

The Kirby name is no stranger to College Hill. Kirby is a third-generation legacy alumnus, and his wife and two children also attended Lafayette.\u00a0<\/p>\n

His family\u2019s foundation<\/a>, of which Kirby is also a board member, has donated millions<\/a> of dollars to the college, culminating in gifts such as the construction of the Kirby Hall of Civil Rights<\/a>, Kirby House<\/a> residence hall and the Allan P. Kirby<\/a> Sports Center<\/a>, as well as the creation of professorship<\/a> and coaching<\/a> endowments.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t say that Lafayette is more deserving or more meritorious than another school, but it\u2019s my school,\u201d Kirby said. \u201cThat\u2019s why I support it.\u201d<\/p>\n

During his time as a student at Lafayette, Kirby served as president of Student Government and went on to receive<\/a> the George Wharton Pepper Prize, an honor awarded to the graduating senior most representative of the \u201cLafayette ideal.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kirby has more than 20 years of experience as a trustee, serving from 1996 to 2012<\/a> before rejoining the board in 2018. He is currently a co-chief investment officer at Broadfield Capital, a New Jersey-based investment firm he founded in 2003.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cMy experience, even going back to being Student Government president, gave me an appreciation for process, and I\u2019m pretty process-oriented,\u201d Kirby said.<\/p>\n

Describing himself as a \u201cbetter listener\u201d than talker, Kirby said the role of the board is not to \u201cmanage the institution\u201d but to be a \u201cresource to monitor.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to be hands-off as much as possible,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Sell, who was elected chairman in 2018 and has served as a trustee since 2006, said his decision to step down as chairman was \u201cjust good governance.\u201d Of the five chairs who preceded Sell, none served longer than 10 years, according to college records. Sell will serve on the board for another two years.<\/p>\n

Sell said his biggest accomplishment as chairman was improving the diversity of the board, specifically pointing to an increase in non-Lafayette alum trustees and trustees with PhD degrees.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe couldn\u2019t be in better shape,\u201d Sell said. He also praised Kirby for his past leadership on the board and years of commitment to the college.<\/p>\n

Under Sell\u2019s leadership, the board navigated obstacles ranging from a global pandemic<\/a> and a presidential transition<\/a> at the college to a historic<\/a> no-confidence<\/a> vote<\/a> and pointed accusations from faculty members that college President Nicole Hurd excluded<\/a> the faculty from decision-making<\/a> and \u201cviolated shared governance principles.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll let others characterize, \u2018were we successful or not in navigating all of that?\u2019\u201d Sell said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere were moments of imperfection at the board level, at the administrative level and at the faculty level,\u201d Kirby said, adding that \u201cthe board has complete confidence in the president and wishes to move forward in a very collaborative fashion\u201d with administration and faculty.<\/p>\n

Kirby mentioned the board\u2019s involvement in planning the early stages of a new capital campaign as a key goal of his term. He also emphasized the importance of ensuring the college\u2019s financial sustainability, which he said would require a financial model that would be less reliant on the endowment and more flexible with other sources of revenue.<\/p>\n

\u201cJeff and Karen Kirby, as alumni, parents of alumni, and leaders in our community have made Lafayette stronger and I am very excited for their vision and commitment as we enter a third century of excellence together,\u201d Hurd wrote in an email.<\/p>\n

Kirby was the only nominee officially appointed by the board\u2019s nominating committee, according to Wynne Whitman \u201886, who chaired the committee. She clarified that all active trustees were considered for nomination and that a range of factors, including \u201cexperience, availability, engagement and knowledge,\u201d were considered when appointing Kirby.<\/p>\n

\u201cLafayette has challenges, as does all of higher education, and we are well-positioned to deal with those challenges better than most,\u201d Kirby said. \u201cI suspect there will be bumps in the road from time to time, but I\u2019m looking forward to a cohesive team to see us through those periods.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jefferson Kirby \u201884 will begin his two-year term as chair of Lafayette College\u2019s Board of Trustees on July…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":208560,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[153,155,154],"class_list":["post-208559","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bethlehem","tag-bethlehem","tag-bethlehem-headlines","tag-bethlehem-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208559","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=208559"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208559\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/208560"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=208559"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=208559"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=208559"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}