Announcement to the College community

A message from the Chairman of the Board of Trinity College:

I wish to inform you that late last week Professor Andrew McGowan tendered his resignation as Warden of Trinity College, in order to take up the role of Dean and President of the Berkeley Divinity School – an Episcopal (Anglican) seminary founded in 1854 and affiliated with Yale since 1971 – and an appointment as Professor of Anglican Studies at the Yale Divinity School. Whilst obviously disappointing for Trinity, this is an exciting opportunity for Andrew, and he will leave us with the College in a very strong position from which to manage the transition to a new Warden.

Yale has requested that Andrew commence at the beginning of August 2014, to coincide with their academic year, and the Trinity Board has agreed to this timing. An international search for the eighth Warden of Trinity College will now commence, and a subcommittee of the Board has been appointed to oversee the process. Mr Campbell Bairstow, the Dean and Deputy Warden, will be acting Warden in the interim, a role he has filled previously, while Andrew was on leave for a semester in 2012. I have every confidence that the College will be in good hands during this time of transition.

Over the next few months, we will have a number of opportunities to acknowledge and celebrate Andrew’s very significant contribution to the life of this College, both as Warden over the past seven years, and earlier as Director of the Theological School. Andrew and his senior colleagues have led Trinity to a position of financial security and strong demand for its educational offerings. This positive base has enabled the Board to set more ambitious targets for the College, and pursue its goal of providing a world-class, transformative education to as many able and talented students as possible.

Under Andrew’s leadership, Trinity’s achievements have included the creation of the Centre for Advanced Studies and the Careers and Further Studies Office, the restructuring of the Theological School with the ambition of direct affiliation to the University of Divinity, the renovation of the Dining Hall and a number of residential buildings, and the securing of a formal agreement between the University of Melbourne and the College regarding our Pathways programs, the first such agreement since Foundation Studies began almost twenty-five years ago.

I know you will join me in wishing Andrew the very best for this next chapter in his career as a senior academic and leading educator, and in extending those same wishes to Andrew’s wife, Dr Felicity Harley McGowan. Andrew and Felicity have served the College very well indeed, and we shall miss them.

Mr Jim Craig

Chairman of the Board

We invite you to read the official Yale Divinity School announcement here.