President Alison Morrison-Shetlar will retire in 2026, the University of Lynchburg announced Wednesday.
Morrison-Shetlar became president of the private university in Lynchburg in summer 2020, succeeding Kenneth Garren, who held the position for nearly 20 years.
“I have decided it is the right time to pass the torch to a new leader who will guide this exceptional institution into its next chapter,” Morrison-Shetlar said in an email to the university community on Wednesday.
She will complete her existing contract and retire at the end of the fiscal year in June 2026, said Heather Bradley, vice president of enrollment, marketing and communications at the university. She said the board of trustees asked Morrison-Shetlar to stay on for another three years, but she “graciously declined.”
In a statement accompanying Morrison-Shetlar’s message, board of trustees chair Julie Doyle said the president and board will focus on continuing to implement the university’s strategic plan over the coming year and will also develop a presidential transition plan.
The university will work with search firm Isaacson Miller to form a presidential search committee, the statement noted.
Formerly Lynchburg College, the institution became a university in 2018. It has spent the last few years digging out of a $12 million deficit.
The university announced in May 2024 that it would cut several undergraduate and graduate programs over the course of the next several years. The university also laid off several dozen employees and has consolidated its academic program under a three-school model to streamline operations.
In December 2024, the school’s accreditor issued a warning against the university for failing to comply with several requirements for financial responsibility, student outcomes and administrative effectiveness. University officials said at the time that the school’s measures to rein in costs had already begun to address the accreditor’s concerns.
The university will submit a report detailing remedies to its compliance issues to the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges in December. Until then, the school’s reaffirmation process, which occurs every 10 years, has been denied. The university maintains its accreditation status throughout this process.
The most recent audit available for University of Lynchburg showed an endowment worth around $140 million as of June 2024. It had about $56 million in debt.
The university announced in August it raised $6.5 million in fiscal year 2025, including pledges and planned gifts. The university started the “silent phase” of a capital fundraising campaign in 2020 and announced this summer it had raised $39 million to date. It plans to raise a total of $40 million by the end of the calendar year.
Like most small, private colleges, the university depends primarily on revenue from students in the form of tuition and fees.
Enrollment reached a peak of just over 3,000 in 2018.
Last fall, Lynchburg had about 1,600 undergraduates and enrolled approximately 725 graduate students.
About 475 new students joined the student body this fall, according to a release from the university; 44 of those are transfers.