Bryan E. Carlson

BRYAN E. CARLSON, Ph.D. who joined RHPA in 2002, also serves as President and COO of Collegiate Enterprise Solutions, Inc. (CES), and as President of the Registry for College and University Presidents. For 23 years he served as the President of Mount Ida College, and brought that institution through an extraordinary transformation. During his presidency Mount Ida grew from a single-sex, two-year school into the leading two-plus-two baccalaureate coeducational college in the Northeast; expanded five academic divisions into eight separate schools; increased faculty from 62 to 219; tripled physical plant capacity and square footage; generated a total funds surplus every year; and increased the endowment by 950%.

In 1999, Dr. Carlson became President of the New England Exchange for Executive Leadership (NEXEL), a division of the Educational Alliance. At NEXEL he served as a leadership and strategic management consultant for both the higher education and corporate sectors. His NEXEL engagements principally focused on the development of multi-sector leadership skills, strategic alliances and partnerships, and dealt with turn-around projects for both academic and corporate organizations.

In 2002, Dr. Carlson was appointed to the position of President of the Registry for College and University Presidents, the nation’s premier interim placement service for presidents and senior administrators.

Dr. Carlson’s honors include election to the academic fraternities of Phi Kappa Phi, Phi Delta Kappa, and The Academy. He is a cum laude graduate of Northeastern University and received an Ed.M. and Ed. D. from Boston University. In 1996, he was one of five national college and university presidents to receive the Bennett National Service Award. In 1998, he was the convener of the International Forum of the Americas (IFA) in Naples, Florida, which brought together eight former heads of state from North, Central, and South America to identify and address the most pressing public policy issues common to the Americas.

Dr. Carlson is the author of the “Presidential Leadership” chapter in Merging Colleges for Natural Growth (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993 and 1999).