David Neidorf has announced his departure from the position of President at Deep Springs, effective June 30, 2020. David assumed the president’s job in 2008 after serving as Dean and Vice-President 2005-2007. For over a decade before that, David had been periodically in residence at Deep Springs as what he terms a “recidivist visiting faculty member.” Mr. Neidorf has led Deep Springs through the Great Recession, the college’s centennial celebration, two successful re-accreditation reviews, and its transition to a coeducational student body. He has also overseen successful capital campaigns that helped increase the college’s endowment by 250%, and secured financing for both replacement of the Boarding House and construction of a new three-unit Faculty Residence.

A committee comprised of alumni, former faculty, students, and board members has convened to conduct a search for a new president to join the community for the new academic years beginning in July, 2020. The Trustees have retained the services of executive search firm Carlson-Beck to assist with the process. Carlson-Beck specializes in executive placements for non-profit and philanthropic organizations, and managing partner Sally Carlson has a long record of experience with Deep Springs, including distinguished service as a Trustee for nine years. The committee will be considering candidates through the summer and plans to conduct interviews in the fall.

For further information about the position and criteria the board is using for their search, please see the Employment tab of the website.

The board of Deep Springs College voted August 31, 2017 to open applications to women for the 2018 entering class. The board adopted the recommendation of the college’s Coeducation Transition Committee, which read: “Having reviewed the preparation needs for admitting women in the summer of 2018, the planning structure, agenda, and the institutional resources in place to address them, the transition committee recommends to the Board of Deep Springs College that the college welcome applications from all promising young people for the incoming class of 2018.”

Deep Springs has operated for a century with an all-male student body; this vote culminates a process begun by the Board’s 2011 resolution that having “carefully considered the purpose of Deep Springs, how best to achieve the purpose, and changes in society since the college was created, the trustees determine that it is appropriate to plan and implement a transition to a coeducational student body.”

The college plans to post the 2018 application to its website on September 5, 2017: https://www.deepsprings.edu/admissions/

Questions about coeducation: coedadmissionsquestions@deepsprings.edu

Press inquiries about coeducation: pressinquiries@deepsprings.edu

For those of you wondering how the recently passed tax law will be felt at Deep Springs, the answer is…we don’t really know yet, but it is the impact on charitable donations that remains unknown.

Charitable Donations: Philanthropic professionals agree that the new law will reduce charitable giving by increasing the number of people who do not itemize donations, and therefore lose access to the tax advantages of their donations. But there is disagreement about the net effect of the reduction—I have seen a range of predictions, from 15% to 40%. Only time will tell.

Endowment Tax: The original bill imposed a 1.4% excise tax on the investment income of private colleges with investments of over $500,000 per student, but exempted colleges with “less than 500 tuition-paying students.” With this language Deep Springs would have been doubly protected from the tax; we have fewer than 500 students, and none of our students are tuition-paying. The final version, however, removed the term “tuition-paying,” but left intact the exemption for colleges like ours with less than 500 students. Since there are few colleges with fewer than 500 students and investments of the requisite size, (ours are nearly $800,000 per student at the present time), and the writers of the legislation did not compose the exemption with Deep Springs in mind, we have taken steps to alert our congressman in case further changes are considered.

Unrelated Business Income: The changes in the new law to the way colleges are taxed for unrelated business income do not apply to Deep Springs, because our agricultural operations are educational enterprises, not businesses.

Taxes on Interest Paid by Certain Bonds: Deep Springs does not use bond financing, so this provision does not impact the college.

Coincidence? We don’t know how those who drafted the tax bill felt about their time in higher education. But we note on reading the bill that immediately following the section increasing taxes on colleges (Part VIII) comes a section reducing taxes on beer (Part IX). Here again, because of our ground rules, Deep Springs is not impacted by this change in the law.

Further Information: We will share more information with the Deep Springs community as it becomes available to us.

Best wishes for the holiday season,

David Neidorf