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DIII Presidents Council elects leaders for next term

Hope College President Jim Bultman and Western Connecticut State University President Jim Schmotter have been elected chair and vice chair, respectively, of the Division III Presidents Council for the 2011-12 term.

Both will assume their new roles with the Council at the conclusion of the 2011 NCAA Convention in San Antonio.

Bultman is currently the vice chair of the Council. He will replace Widener University President Jim Harris, whose term as chair and as a Council member ends after the 2011 Convention. Bultman’s Council term extends through the 2013 Convention.

Bultman, a 1963 graduate of Hope, became the 11th president of the college in July 1999. He joined the college as a faculty member in 1968 before chairing the department of education from 1976 to 1982. He was dean of the social sciences from 1982 until 1985. Bultman is familiar with intercollegiate athletics, having served as head baseball coach at Hope from 1971 to 1985 and as an assistant football coach from 1970 to 1984.

He became president at Northwestern College in Orange City, Iowa, in 1985 and stayed in that role until moving to Hope in 1999.

Bultman graduated from Hope with a major in chemistry. He holds a master’s degree and doctorate in educational leadership from Western Michigan University.

Schmotter, whose term on the Presidents Council also extends through the 2013 Convention, became president of Western Connecticut State in August 2004.

He arrived there from Western Michigan, where he served as dean of the Haworth College of Business for seven years. Before that, he served as dean of the College of Business and Economics at Lehigh University. In his 14 years at the Johnson Graduate School of Management at Cornell University, he served as associate dean and director of international studies, and taught business history and international management.

Schmotter earned his bachelor’s degree in history at Muskingum College. He received his doctorate in Colonial American history at Northwestern University and studied higher education administration at Columbia University.