Steven Poskanzer

Steven G. Poskanzer served as the 11th President of Carleton College from 2010 to 2021. He is currently a Professor of Political Science and President Emeritus of Carleton. A scholar of higher education law, Poskanzer’s research focuses on issues of academic freedom and how colleges and universities seek to achieve educational goals in a complex legal and policy environment.

Poskanzer received his undergraduate degree from Princeton University in 1980 and a law degree from Harvard University in 1983. After practicing law briefly in Washington, D.C., his entire career has been spent in higher education. He first worked in the Office of the General Counsel at the University of Pennsylvania, becoming the University’s Associate General Counsel. He then spent a year as an American Council on Education Fellow back at Princeton, working as an assistant to the University’s Provost.

In 1993, Poskanzer moved to the University of Chicago, where he served as Executive Assistant to the President and, among other duties, was responsible for the University’s Public Affairs department and for policy planning for the Board of Trustees. In 1997, Poskanzer shifted from private to public higher education, joining the State University of New York (SUNY). Initially based in Albany at SUNY’s System Administration, he quickly rose to the position of Vice Provost for the 64-campus System and headed the Office of Academic Affairs. From 2001-2010, Poskanzer served as President of SUNY New Paltz.  New Paltz dramatically enhanced its student and faculty quality and its overall academic reputation during Poskanzer’s tenure, including being recognized by Newsweek as the “Hottest Small State School” in America.

The centerpiece of Poskanzer’s administrative career was his presidency at Carleton. Under his leadership, the College completed and successfully implemented a strategic plan which set express priorities for its next decade, including:

• enhanced career preparation for students;
• increased socio-economic diversity of the student body; and
• collaboration with other liberal arts colleges.

Poskanzer then raised over $491 million in a development campaign to achieve the goals of the strategic plan (far exceeding the $400 million target).

During Poskanzer’s presidency, applications to the Carleton rose to record levels and the student body became much more diverse racially and geographically. The College emphasized and dramatically expanded need-based financial aid for both low- and for middle-income students. The College held to the highest standards for faculty hiring and tenure decisions, and also built new state-of-the-art interdisciplinary science research and teaching and music performance facilities. Poskanzer led the creation of a consortium of ten top liberal arts colleges that jointly experimented with distance learning and other emerging technologies.  And Carleton’s endowment increased in value from $460 million to over $1.1 billion.

Having returned to Carleton in a fulltime faculty role in fall 2022, Poskanzer teaches courses on Constitutional Law, Judges and Courts, and Legal Issues in Higher Education. His most recent book, The University’s Voice: Principled Silence and Purposeful Speech (Johns Hopkins University Press 2025) analyzes whether and when it is appropriate for universities to take institutional stances on political, economic, moral, and social issues.

Steve is married to Dr. Jane Nofer Poskanzer, a clinical child psychologist who specializes in the diagnosis of autism and related disabilities.