media marketing“I feel peaceful. I believe it is the right decision for the college right now,” President Antoinette Iadarola bitter sweetly said after formally announcing her retirement from Cabrini College.
Three hours prior to her retirement announcement, Iadarola sent out a campus wide e-mail stating that there would be an all-college meeting at 1 p.m. on Friday, Sept. 7 in the Grace Hall Atrium. She encouraged all members of the Cabrini community to attend.
Faculty and students alike were baffled by the sudden e-mail and questioned its objective.
“I was surprised,” Jennifer Burke, junior education major, said. “I thought it was about the robberies,” Bernadette Dolan, junior business marketing major, said in agreement with Burke.
“I am today formally announcing my retirement from Cabrini College, effective June 30, 2008, after what will be 16 privileged years of serving as your president,” Iadarola, who was a vision of power in her vibrantly red suit said in her speech on Friday. “Being president of Cabrini College has been the highlight of my career.”
Iadarola planned this retirement around the completion of the 10,000 Hearts Campaign and the development of the new strategic plan set to finish in 2012.
“I believe it would be unfair of me to stay another year or two and then disrupt the campaign by my departure. Friends, the timing is right.”
Throughout Iadarola’s presidency Cabrini stepped up and accomplished the goal of “Do Something Extraordinary.” New partnerships have been established with Drexel University and the Southeastern Pennsylvania Consortium for Hire Education. Also, new buildings and facility renovations have dramatically altered the Cabrini experience for the best.
“Those who know me know it is difficult for me to walk away from a challenge,” Iadarola said. “And the challenges that together we have tackled over the years have truly turned, for me, into a labor love.”
Never to leave a challenge unfinished, Iadarola promises that her and the board of trustees have “begun the process of an orderly transition. and will soon report. on the creation of the presidential screening committee.”
“Preparing the campus for new leadership and a capital campaign will be my primary goal.”
However, Iadarola assures students that they “will not be left out and will have a chance to put their input [in] to this search.”
“It’s like a marriage. I came here, I fell in love with the faculty, the curriculum, the students and the trustees. It was a very welcoming community.” Iadarola said after giving her speech and walking off the stage. “Family means a lot to me, and I think I experienced that here.”
