Board Transitions

Board Retirement

John S. Chalsty, a long-time member of the Teagle Foundation’s Board of Directors, retired in May after 34 years of distinguished service. Mr. Chalsty brought to Teagle a wide range of business and investment experience that greatly benefited the Foundation during his tenure and will continue to do so. For the past 11 years, he served as Chairman of the Board and under his gifted leadership the Foundation made great strides toward its goal of advancing student learning. Currently Chairman of Muirfield Capital Management LLC, Mr. Chalsty held a number of positions at Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette, Inc., including that of Chief Executive Officer for 11 years. In addition to his work in the financial services industry and his leadership at the Teagle Foundation, Mr. Chalsty is involved with many other philanthropic organizations. John Chalsty’s commitment to the Foundation, its mission and its grantees never wavered throughout the years and the Foundation will always be grateful for his dedicated service.

New Board Member

Richard J. Light is the Walter H. Gale Professor of Education at Harvard University where he teaches statistics, program evaluation, and policy analysis with a focus on higher education. He created and now chairs Harvard's Seminar on Assessment—now in its eighteenth year—a consortium of faculty and administrators from twenty-four colleges and universities that carries out research on college effectiveness. Dr. Light is also Founder and Chair of the Forum for Excellence and Innovation in Higher Education which, funded by the Spencer Foundation, aims to systematically evaluate and improve students' experience on campus, allowing each institution to become a "learning organization." An Elected Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, he has been a leading figure among important efforts for assessment and evaluation of learning with organizations such as the American Evaluation Association, the National Academy of Sciences, the U.S. General Accounting Office, and the National Academy of Education. He has been elected to the National Board of the American Association for Higher Education, and appointed to the National Board of the Fund for Improvement of Postsecondary Education. Dr. Light served as a trustee of Wellesley College from 1999 to 2006. He is the author or co-author of seven books, and his most recent book, Making the Most of College: Students Speak their Minds, was honored the Virginia and Warren Stone Prize for best book of the year about Education and Society. He received a Ph.D. in statistics from Harvard in 1969 and was appointed as a professor there in 1974.