Biography

Alan Price, Class of 1988, served as Earlham College’s 18th president from July 1, 2017 to June 27, 2018. Before coming to Earlham, he was the Associate Director of Management for the Peace Corps and Acting Chief of Staff for the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service in Washington, D.C. An expert in change management and leadership development, Price served on Earlham’s Board of Trustees from 2016 to 2018.

In the role of president, Price was notable for the enthusiasm and love he expressed for Earlham. Price recruited and hired several new vice presidents, assembling an almost entirely new senior leadership team during his year in office.

Price was the first person of color to serve as Earlham’s president. Although he ran a department at Harvard Business School and had taught on the university level, his career spanned a broad range of experiences in nonprofit, for-profit and government organizations that informed his return to academia. He majored in economics at Earlham and earned his J.D. at Harvard Law School in 1992.

In a varied career, he worked as a consultant to major corporations, but also displayed a passion for education, including serving as an elected member of the Cambridge (Mass.) School Board from 2002-04. He also had a long history of public service, serving in the U.S. Army National Guard from 1983-89 and on the Cambridge (Mass.) Police Review and Advisory Board from 1996-2002, in addition to leadership roles in federal government, to which he was appointed by President Barack Obama.

After leaving Earlham in 2018, he became head of the Kennedy Library in Cambridge, Massachusetts.