Rollins' 14th President: Lewis M. Duncan
 Lewis
M. Duncan, Rollins' 14th president, took office on
August 1, 2004. Born in West Virginia and later raised
in Texas, Dr. Duncan (he actually prefers to be called
Lewis), is a self-described member of the "Sputnik
Generation." His childhood fascination with satellites
and the space program guided his educational and career
paths. And while today Duncan is literally a rocket
scientist, he is remarkably down to Earth. Warm,
friendly and approachable, he was attracted to Rollins
because of the College’s commitment to excellence,
innovation and community. He believes in the value of a
liberal arts education and that Rollins has an important
role to play on the national stage in raising the issue
of how to make liberal education relevant for the 21st
century.
As Duncan meets with alumni and friends of the College, in Winter Park
and around the country, he updates them on developments at Rollins. Following is his most recent message.
Taking Rollins into the Community
The Rollins College Mission Statement recognizes our commitment to educating for global citizenship and responsible leadership. It also acknowledges our attachment to community, including cultural enrichment, social responsibility, and environmental stewardship. We fulfill that mission in a variety of ways.
Service learning and community engagement provide opportunities for our students to apply what they learn in the classroom to what they discover in the world outside those four walls. Examples range from mentoring at-risk elementary-school students to serving on the boards of nonprofit organizations, to restoring natural habitats here in Winter Park. The beneficiaries are the members of our community whose lives are touched by these service ambassadors, and the students themselves, who report learning experiences that are truly transformative.
Bringing the Community to Rollins
We are pleased that Rollins continues to stand as a cultural and intellectual resource for Central Florida and the state. The annual
Winter Park Bach Festival has called Rollins home for 74 years and our own Festival of the Literary Arts,
Winter With the Writers, celebrated 69 years of visits from authors such as Carl Sandburg, Allen Ginsberg, David Halberstam, Russell Banks, and Nikki Giovanni. This year’s series featured Nobel Prize honoree Derek Walcott and former U.S. Poet Laureate Billy Collins.
With the introduction of the
Winter Park Institute (WPI), inspired by The Animated Magazine created by the College’s eighth president, Hamilton Holt, Rollins raises its profile as a destination for notable visiting scholars and artists. In addition to providing an environment for study and intellectual discourse, the Institute sponsors programs for the campus and local communities. Inaugural WPI fellows included Billy Collins, Béla Fleck, and Marilyn Horne.
The arts at Rollins College continue to flourish at the
Annie Russell Theatre,
Cornell Fine Arts Museum, and
Virginia S. and W. W. Nelson Department of Music, and top-flight collegiate
athletics plays out at our various sports venues.
Signs of Success
For the second consecutive year, Rollins has been named to the
President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll With Distinction, the highest federal recognition. This citation follows on the College’s selection to receive
Community Engagement Classification from the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, making it one of fewer than 200 colleges and universities nationwide to earn this designation. Rollins was the inaugural recipient of
Florida Campus Compact’s Overall Statewide Award for most-engaged campus and Rollins faculty members have won the Service-Learning Faculty Award for independent schools each year it has been presented. We were also honored to have been selected as one of 18 institutions comprising the Association of American Colleges and Universities’ Core Commitments Leadership Consortium, charged with developing a national initiative to educate students for personal and social responsibility.
Beyond the certificates and plaques lies the intangible value of the service experience for our campus community. Our students have learned the power of teamwork: pooling their efforts, they raised more than $37,000 for Children’s Miracle Network this past fall. They have learned to reach out to people they would never meet in their daily lives: giving up their vacations, they boarded buses to New Orleans to help rebuild neighborhoods devastated by Hurricane Katrina.
At Rollins, education is learning through application. Our students explore a variety of ways of thinking and doing in the course of finding their true purpose and their real place—not just here at Rollins but in the greater world. We are proud of Rollins’ history of service, and prouder still of the generations of students who shaped—and continue to shape—that history.
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