{"id":28415,"date":"2024-04-01T22:02:27","date_gmt":"2024-04-01T22:02:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/steven-schwartz-named-interim-president-at-fort-lewis-college\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T06:29:30","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T06:29:30","slug":"steven-schwartz-named-interim-president-at-fort-lewis-college","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/steven-schwartz-named-interim-president-at-fort-lewis-college\/","title":{"rendered":"Steven Schwartz named interim president at Fort Lewis College"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Courtesy
Courtesy of Fort Lewis College<br><br>Fort Lewis College anticipates furloughs and layoffs to deal with a budget shortfall during the 2020-21 school year.<\/span>du1-i-syn<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

The Fort Lewis College Board of Trustees has tapped Steven Schwartz, the school\u2019s vice president for finance and administration, as interim president.<\/p>\n

Schwartz will take the reins from Tom Stritikus on May 6. Stritikus announced last week that he is stepping down<\/a> to pursue a job as president of Occidental College, a private liberal arts college in Los Angeles.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith a 27-year tenure of service to our College, Steve has the historical wisdom, financial acuity, political networks, and hard-earned trust of the Skyhawk community,\u201d said Mary Rubadeau, chair of the FLC Board of Trustees, in an email to staff and students. \u201cSteve will build upon our momentum as we launch the search for a permanent president.\u201d<\/p>\n

Campus leaders and board members met last week to discuss who would best fill role. Schwartz has worked at the college for almost 27 years, serving under seven different presidents during his tenure. He has served as the vice president for finance and administration for the last 22 years.<\/p>\n

Before that, he was a student at Fort Lewis College, graduating in the class of 1992.<\/p>\n

In an interview Monday, Schwartz said his main priority is to maintain the momentum Stritikus built around the college\u2019s strategic plan, financial planning, and stability and legislative support.<\/p>\n

\"Schwartz\"
Schwartz<\/span>du1-i-syn<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

\u201cWe\u2019ve got great legislators \u2013 great support \u2013 locally and throughout the state for what we do,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd so that\u2019ll continue to be at the top of the list.\u201d<\/p>\n

The college recently received $1.3 million in congressionally directed spending for its renovations to Skyhawk Hall, which will turn the building into a facility for the college\u2019s new nursing program.<\/p>\n

The college\u2019s strategic plan will evaluate institutional strengths, existing resources and the college\u2019s overall progression during the next 10 years.<\/p>\n

Schwartz also created the mortgage assistance program for FLC employees. The program was developed to help employees own a home in the high-cost environment of Durango.<\/p>\n

Schwartz said he does not intend to apply for the president\u2019s position.<\/p>\n

\u201cI love what I do as the chief operating officer,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019ve been here for almost 27 years now. And it\u2019s where my passion lies.\u201d<\/p>\n

The board of trustees will meet on April 12 to define what the applicant process will look like.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am humbled by the trustees\u2019 decision and honored to serve Fort Lewis College in this new capacity,\u201d Schwartz said. \u201cOur students, faculty, staff and Board of Trustees are awesome and FLC is stronger than ever. I\u2019m excited to continue our momentum as we search for a permanent president.\u201d<\/p>\n

tbrown@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

president of finance and administration has worked at the school for nearly 27 years<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26095,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[950,155,132,28],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-28415","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-durango","tag-education","tag-fort-lewis-college","tag-headlines"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28415","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28415"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28415\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":80404,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28415\/revisions\/80404"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26095"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28415"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28415"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28415"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=28415"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}