Biography

The Lebanon Valley College Board of Trustees named Dr. Stephen C. MacDonald the College’s 17th president on October 8, 2004. MacDonald had been LVC’s vice president for academic affairs and dean of the faculty since 1998 and had served as acting president since May 2004.

As dean, MacDonald worked with the College faculty and former president to help initiate several new academic programs that contributed to enrollment growth and increased academic recognition for the College. Most notably, he oversaw the Doctor of Physical Therapy Program with physical therapy faculty as they guided the new program to full accreditation by the national Commission on Accreditation in Physical Therapy Education.

As president, MacDonald has overseen the construction and completion of the College’s multi-million dollar renovation and revitalization of Lynch Memorial Hall into an advanced technology teaching and learning center. He recently completed working with the dean and faculty on an $18 million revitalization of the College’s Neidig-Garber Science Center, oversaw the new construction of the $12 million Stanson Residence Hall, and oversaw the $2.3 million historic renovation of the Humanities Building, among other capital and academic improvement projects.

MacDonald also led the College in completing the $50 million Great Expectations Campaign with funds used toward endowment, capital construction, and current operations. He established the College’s first Sustainability Task Force to embrace the goal of environmental sustainability and encouraged curricular and co-curricular programs related to sustainability.

MacDonald has worked toward establishing a positive relationship with local communities and has supported downtown improvement efforts with two gifts totaling $500,000 committed by the College toward Annville’s Streetscape Projects. Continuing his work as dean, President MacDonald has expanded student/faculty research outside of the College’s nationally recognized undergraduate science programs across the curriculum and has initiated several programs to increase LVC’s student retention rates.

Prior to coming to LVC, MacDonald served as associate dean of Dickinson College and director of the Central Pennsylvania Consortium, and he taught history at Lynchburg College in Virginia and at the University of Maine at Fort Kent.

A native of Massachusetts, MacDonald is a magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa history graduate of Tufts University and earned a doctorate in history from the University of Virginia. His areas of interest and expertise include modern European and modern German history.

He is married to the journalist Mary Warner. Their son, John MacDonald, also a journalist, lives in New York City.