Cornell University Dean Benjamin Houlton named as first ISU president finalist

AMES — The first of two finalists to succeed Iowa State University President Wendy Wintersteen is Benjamin Houlton, dean of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Cornell University, where he also holds rank as an ecology and evolutionary biology professor.

At the private Ithaca, N.Y.-based Cornell, Houlton serves as co-chair of “The 2030 Project: A Cornell Climate Initiative” — aimed at “mobilizing practical climate change solutions for a more resilient society through collaborative work across disciplines universitywide.”

As dean of Cornell — which, like Iowa State, boasts a land grant mission — Houlton also helps lead the Cornell Cooperative Extension throughout New York state.

Houlton’s name was made public at 8 a.m. Tuesday in advance of his visit to campus Wednesday, when he’ll participate in a public forum at 4 p.m. in Iowa State’s Memorial Union.

Before Houlton takes the stage for the forum Wednesday afternoon, the Board of Regents on Wednesday morning will release the name of the second finalist for the job — who’s planning to visit campus for a public forum on Thursday.

The two finalists are the only candidates remaining from an original pool of 78 applicants, which a 12-member search committee narrowed down to eight semifinalists and then four finalists last month. Of those four, only three accepted the invitation to continue on to the public portion of the process.

And then another dropped out of contention Friday — leaving just two vying for the job to lead Iowa’s land-grant public university, established nearly 168 years ago in 1858 as the “Iowa Agricultural College and Model Farm.”

Wintersteen was named Iowa State’s 16th president — and first female president — in November 2017 and earlier this year announced plans to retire.

“My hope is that the search process will begin very soon, and the new president will assume the role in January of 2026, whereupon I will retire,” Wintersteen wrote in a campus announcement in May.

Houlton, according to his curriculum vitae, has Midwestern roots — earning an undergraduate degree in water chemistry from the University of Wisconsin in 1998. He went on to get a master’s in environmental engineering from Syracuse and then two doctorates in ecology and evolutionary biology — one from Cornell University and another from Princeton University.

He was a postdoctoral scholar at Stanford University and visiting scientist at CSIRO's former Division of Marine and Atmospheric Research in Victoria, Australia before taking an assistant professorship at the University of California, Davis in 2007.

He gained full professorship within the University of California system in 2016 and served as a principal investigator in the UC Office of the President from 2019 to 2022.

He began his tenure at Cornell University in 2020 as Dean of its College of Agriculture and Life Sciences — the campus’ second-largest college, comprised of 18 academic units, more than 600 faculty, 3,600-plus undergraduate students, and about 1,000 graduate students.

He oversees in that capacity an annual operating budget of more than $600 million.

Other searches

Iowa State isn’t the only college or university in Iowa searching for a new president — and it’s not the only to have had finalists drop out.

The Des Moines Area Community College over the summer launched its search to replace President Rob Denson, who announced his retirement in January after 22 years at the helm.

But in early October the DMACC Board of Directors postponed its on-campus finalist interviews after two of the final three “suddenly withdrew their names from consideration.”

“We feel very good about the quality of our third candidate, but we also have reservations about bringing only one finalist to Campus,” DMACC board President Kevin Halterman, chair of the presidential search committee, said in a statement.

“We believe that for a job as complex and desirable as this one, our community deserves to hear from multiple candidates about their vision and leadership styles,” he said. “While this is a disappointing development for our search, we are committed to getting the right candidate, even if it takes longer than we’d originally planned.”

The board on Friday appointed Liang Chee Wee as interim president starting Jan. 1 — when DMACC will resume its search for a permanent president it hopes to install in July.

Wee recently wrapped nearly two years as interim chancellor of Eastern Iowa Community Colleges after serving as president of Northeast Iowa Community College from 2011 to 2022.

Vanessa Miller covers higher education for The Gazette.

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