President Roger N. Casey named chair of Centennial Athletic Conference

McDaniel College President Roger N. Casey is the new chair of the Centennial Athletic Conference Presidents Council. He has also been appointed to the NCAA Division III Chancellors/Presidents Advisory Group.

As chair of the Centennial Conference, he works with the conference’s executive director and serves as the lead presidential representative for the 11 Centennial Conference institutions, including McDaniel, as well as Bryn Mawr, Dickinson, Franklin & Marshall, Gettysburg, Haverford, Muhlenberg, Swarthmore, Ursinus and Washington colleges, and Johns Hopkins University. His term runs for two years.

President Casey also represents the Centennial Conference on the NCAA Division III Chancellors/Presidents Advisory Group, where he serves alongside other presidents and chancellors from Division III conferences who are advisors to the Division III Presidents Council, the highest governing body in the division.  

Previously, President Casey served as vice-chair of the Centennial Conference. In this role, he chaired the search for the conference’s new executive director, Portia Hoeg, who is the first African-American woman named commissioner at the Division III level. She became only the second full-time executive director in the 26-year history of the conference on April 15, 2019.

The ninth president of McDaniel College, President Casey is currently vice chair of the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities (NAICU), independent higher education’s largest policy and advocacy group, and sits on the Board of Directors for the American Council on Education (ACE), the major coordinating body for the nation’s colleges and universities. He previously served on the Council of Independent Colleges (CIC) steering committee to assess the future of independent colleges.

As one of the longest-serving independent college presidents in the State of Maryland, he is also the former chair of the Maryland Independent College and University Association (MICUA), the voice of independent higher education in Maryland. 

A Phi Beta Kappan and first-generation college graduate, he holds a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in English from Florida State University and a bachelor’s degree from Furman University.