Vice President for Campus Life W. Rochelle Calhoun, who has played a pivotal role in enriching the undergraduate and graduate student experience during a period of significant growth at Princeton, will retire at the end of the 2026-27 academic year.
Since joining the University in 2015, Calhoun has led myriad efforts to provide a dynamic and supportive campus environment for students as the University expanded its undergraduate student body and built new residential, athletic, health and recreational facilities. She has also championed campus life initiatives focused on community and belonging, health and well-being, service and free expression.
“Over the past decade, Rochelle Calhoun has been a wise, compassionate, and effective leader for student life on this campus,” said Princeton President Christopher L. Eisgruber. “She has also been a treasured colleague and dear friend. I am grateful to Rochelle for her insight, her counsel, and the many ways that she has improved Princeton.”
“Rochelle Calhoun’s legacy will be visible for generations in the lives and programs that she helped to shape during her time at our University,” Eisgruber said.
“Rochelle has been an extraordinary Campus Life leader at Princeton during a period of rapid change for the University and for higher education more broadly,” said Katie Callow-Wright, executive vice president. “She serves as a pillar in our community, bringing a unique blend of integrity, vision, wisdom, a steady hand and a sense of humor to campus every day.”
“I am personally grateful for everything I have learned from Rochelle, and we are fortunate that her impact as vice president will be seen across the University for many years to come,” Callow-Wright added.
As vice president for campus life, Calhoun oversees offices and departments that shape the co-curricular and extracurricular student experience at Princeton, including athletics and campus recreation, career development, diversity and inclusion, health services, religious life, service and civic engagement, and undergraduate student organizations, activities and government. Her office also oversees Princeton’s Army ROTC program.
She developed the Office of the Vice President for Campus Life’s first strategic plan, which focused on strengthening belonging across student populations, prioritizing health and well-being, developing students for a life of meaning and service, and enhancing collaboration and communication across all offices that support the co-curricular and extracurricular experiences of students. Calhoun is now leading work on an updated Campus Life Strategic Plan, which is slated to be completed prior to her retirement.
Calhoun said it’s been an honor to work with University administrators, Campus Life colleagues and student leaders to provide all students with the opportunity to flourish while they are at Princeton. “At Princeton you never have a sense that you are in it alone,” she said. “Hard decisions, incredible accomplishments and even personal struggles or achievements can be embraced in the community that is Princeton.”
She said she is especially proud of work to engage and empower student communities in new ways. “Working with students who are not only smart but committed members of the Princeton community has been my greatest joy,” Calhoun said. “Students at Princeton have an amazing capacity for thinking about the needs of their classmates that is unique and truly special.”
During Calhoun’s tenure, the University has significantly expanded health and well-being initiatives, focusing on a holistic approach that is embedded into the campus culture and student experience.
In recent years, the University established a Mental Health Task Force that engaged the nonprofit Jed Foundation to identify opportunities to strengthen mental health and well-being on campus; expanded trainings and resources for all faculty, staff and students on how to recognize and respond to students in distress; and opened the new Frist Health Center, the Class of 1986 Fitness and Wellness Center, Wilkinson Fitness Center, and other athletic and recreational facilities.
Calhoun has also worked with University leaders to support Princeton’s commitment to academic freedom and free expression, including the launch of the annual Orientation program on free expression for incoming undergraduates led by President Eisgruber and the Protests and Free Expression website.
Reflecting Princeton’s commitment to service, Calhoun helped oversee the launch of the Leadership and Education through Service (LENS) initiative to give Princeton undergraduate students opportunities for funded service and social impact summer internships. LENS is administered by the Center for Career Development and the Pace Center for Civic Engagement.
As part of her office’s strategic plan, Calhoun established the new position of assistant vice president for diversity, belonging and well-being and the Campus Life Development Committee to work collaboratively across all Campus Life units.
During her tenure, Princeton also opened two new residential colleges, Huo College and Yeh College, and is in the process of completing a third new residential college, Hobson College.
Looking toward the future, Calhoun said she will miss “the spirit of collaboration, the extraordinary leadership of the University and the positive sense of community.”
“From the very first interview, I fell in love with the people of Princeton,” she said. “I knew then that this would be a very special place to work and that has been true.”
Callow-Wright will direct a national search for Calhoun’s successor, with the goal for the position to be filled by summer 2027.
Calhoun came to Princeton in September 2015 after serving as dean of students and vice president for student affairs at Skidmore College for seven years.
Prior to her role at Skidmore, Calhoun was executive director of the Mount Holyoke College Alumnae Association. She previously worked in other roles at Mount Holyoke, including as acting dean of the college, associate dean of the college and as a director of diversity and inclusion. She received a bachelor’s in theater arts and politics from Mount Holyoke and a master of fine arts in theater from Columbia University.
Calhoun is a long-standing member and past president of the McCarter Theatre Center Board of Trustees and previously served on The Paul Robeson House Advisory Committee in Princeton. She is president of Mount Holyoke’s Alum Association Board and is a member of the Mount Holyoke College Board of Trustees. She also served on the Corporation Visiting Committee for the Division of Student Life at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
She previously served on the boards of directors for Home Made Theater in Saratoga Springs, New York, Saratoga Springs Sponsor a Scholar, Planned Parenthood of Saratoga Springs, the National Conference for Community and Justice Western Massachusetts, and the University of Massachusetts/Amherst Fine Arts Center. She also served as president of the board for Girls, Inc. of Holyoke, Massachusetts.
