John Harp’s career in higher education is drawing to a close after more than 40 years with several different institutions. The last 29 years of his career were spent here, at Cornell College.
“I want to cross the career finish line in a sprint rather than exhaustion,” Harp said. “My wife, Cheryl, and I have four children ranging in age from 18 to 30. Two happen to be seniors this year: Bennett at Mount Vernon High and Annalise at the University of Iowa. Victoria lives and works in Des Moines, and Andrew in Marion. Now is the time for me to be my best self with my family, travel, visit friends, and get to those hobbies and projects that have been on the back burner for a long time. I have a long list.”
Harp said he has enjoyed the work he has contributed to the educational experience of college students from the first minutes of their New Student Orientations through their graduation from Cornell College.
“The beauty of working at a small college is the opportunity to really get to know students and challenge and support their personal development over a four-year period,” Harp said. “Working closely with student leaders who were residence life or orientation staff members, in student senate positions, in leadership programs, on athletic teams, and in campus employment roles were significant highlights. To see these students go on to successful careers and lives has been a privilege, and now so many of them have their kids at Cornell.”
Before coming to Cornell College, Harp worked at Rhodes College, Winthrop University and the University of Memphis.
He said as a first-generation college student, he had no clue what he wanted to be or what to major in.
“My first year in college was a struggle, academically, but I stuck with it, including embracing the ambiguity of not knowing what I wanted to do,’ Harp said. “By my junior year, there were so many things I enjoyed studying. I explored the possibility of many different careers like business management, education and coaching, counseling, marketing, state or federal law enforcement, and even journalism.
“I had also become very involved in campus life through residence life, a fraternity, intramurals, student government, and student media. Certainly, I was influenced by the professional staff members who coordinated those programs at Winthrop.”
It wasn’t until his junior year that he realized working a career in higher education administration would be the perfect way to combine his academic interests with the activities he enjoyed in college.
“Fast forward 38 years through four very different institutions [Winthrop, University of
Memphis, Rhodes College, and Cornell], and I realize what a privilege this ride has been,” Harp said. “And having Cornell at the center of my career universe has been a dream. I wish that everyone could love their careers as much as I have.”
For Harp, he’s going to miss the people on the Hilltop.
“I can’t begin to describe the value of the working relationships formed with numerous staff from all parts of the college,” he said. “It has been so meaningful. Over the past few weeks, as I announced my retirement, I’ve been in touch with so many current and former colleagues, students, long-time friends, mentors, and mentees from Iowa, Tennessee, and South Carolina. How fortunate I’ve been! And for the past 29 years to have been on the idyllic Cornell campus and to raise a family in lovely Mount Vernon…what a life!”
He’s also going to miss working with people in the Mount Vernon and Lisbon communities. He said there’s a healthy relationship between the city government, the school district, and the college.
“We were really brought closer together when dealing with COVID, and we have continued to build on that relationship,” Harp said. “There is no doubt that one entity affects the other, and we are definitely in this together.”
Cornell has seen it’s share of changes over the past three decades, including significant upgrades to its physical plant, new buildings and massive renovations and improvements in energy efficiency.
“In particular, I’ve enjoyed seeing the transformations of Thomas Commons and the SAW (Richard and Norma Small Athletic and Wellness Center), which made meaningful differences for the student and employee experience and for sustaining the college,” Harp said. “The facilities services crew does an amazing job of maintaining building operations and the beauty of the grounds on a daily basis.”
Harp was hired as assistant dean of students by former Cornell College president Les Garner and vice president Joan Claar in 1995. His responsibilities then included coordinating student activities, Greek life, new student orientations and the Commons.
Around 1998, he was promoted to associate dean of students and added responsibilities for career services. In 2000, he was selected as dean of students, and then later named vice president for student affairs/dean of students, which added oversight of athletics, health and counseling, student conduct, intercultural life, chaplain, residence life, dining and campus safety, alongside his previous duties.
Harp started as special assistant to the president in 2021.
Some of the significant challenges in the position have been handling real life. Incidents like Columbine, COVID-19, the 9/11 attacks, George Floyd’s death, the flood of 2008 and the derecho of 2020 were all things he helped people navigate.
“Cornell is the workplace of several hundred people every day and the home-away-from-home for over a thousand 18-22-year-olds each year,” Harp said. “How we responded at Cornell, how those events affected people and policies on the Hilltop, and how we offered shoulders to cry on or rolled up our sleeves and went to work together was critically important to all of those people and reflective of our campus and community culture.”
Providing access and support for students and employees, whether that was related to financial need, learning disabilities or mental health challenges has also been an increasing challenge for Cornell and all colleges over the past decade.
One of the other significant challenges has been embracing technological evolutions.
“Certainly, virtual learning and incorporating AI are the more recent examples of how technology and educational administration are intertwined,” Harp said. “But an interesting moment in the late ‘90s was seeing the bewilderment and frustration of upper-class students responding to a few of our newest students who were showing up with ‘mobile’ phones and being on calls while walking across campus instead of acknowledging people who they walked past. Of course, nowadays it is all too common for people to ignore each other while immersed in their smartphones or with headphones or Air Pods occupying their attention, but to watch the change unfold with young people in real time was extraordinary.”