Lash has been president of the Washington D.C.-based World Resources Institute for 18 years.
Jonathan LashAMHERST - A expert on climate change, energy security and resource, environment and development policy will be Hampshire College’s 6th president.
Jonathan Lash, 65, has been president of the Washington D.C. World Resources Institute “whose research, analysis and policy recommendations provide practical solutions to global challenges of environment and sustainability, according to his Website.”
Lash, dubbed the finalist, was on campus today and in according blogger Marc Gunther, Lash said he was leaving WRI to become the Hampshire College president. “I will leave WRI with sadness, but with no misgivings about its future. The work you are doing is more innovative and having a greater impact than at any time in WRI’s history.” He has been at WRI for 18 years.
In 2005, Rolling Stone Magazine named him to its list of 25 environmental leaders.
According to the blog, Lash was born in Greenwich Village but went to the Putney School, a progressive boarding school in Vermont which.
Lash told Gunther, who writes about business and sustainability, that Hampshire, “it’s a natural place for me to go and continue to be a rabble rouser,” he said. “Apathy drives me crazy, and apathy is nowhere to be found on this campus,” he added.
Lash has a bachelor’s degree from Harvard University and his masters and law degrees from the Catholic University of America.
According to the WRI Web site, Lash served as a law clerk to The Hon. Frank M. Coffin, then Chief Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit. He was also the co-chair of the President’s Council on Sustainable Development, a group of U.S. government, business, labor, civil rights, and environmental leaders appointed by President Clinton that developed visionary recommendations for strategies to promote sustainable development.
Lash replaces Ralph Hexter who announced last year August that he was making the “transition from the office.” He said that he would officially step down as president at the conclusion of his sabbatical, which started Sept. 1.
Philosophy professor and abortion-rights advocate Marlene Gerber Fried has served as the interim president of the college, founded in 1970.
Lash was one of four semi-finalists for the position.