Keith Archer Named Vice-President for Finance and Treasurer of the College

Keith A. Archer will be the next Vice-President for Finance and Treasurer of the College at Grinnell College. Archer is currently the vice president for finance and administrative services for Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois. Grinnell and Knox are two of the 14 members of the Associated Colleges of the Midwest (ACM) partnership. Archer will begin work at Grinnell in the summer of 2018.

As a member of the senior leadership team, Archer will provide strategic vision, leadership, and direction for the College’s financial operations, as well as for human resources, facilities management, risk management, and auxiliary services.

“Keith brings extensive operational and financial management experience to our already strong financial position, and he will be a great asset to the consensus-driven administrative culture at Grinnell,” says Raynard S. Kington, president. “I look forward to the leadership he will bring to this critical position, and I am pleased to welcome Keith and his wife, Melissa, to the Grinnell community.”

Archer comes to Grinnell with a broad business background and proven track record of financial oversight and institutional planning in the non-profit and for-profit sectors. He has more than 35 years of professional experience, including nearly 13 years in higher education administration at Knox and at DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana.

"I look forward to this very exciting opportunity to join the leadership team of such a highly ranked residential liberal arts college,” Archer said about his Grinnell College appointment. “Having worked at two excellent institutions, DePauw University and Knox College, I have developed a deep respect and admiration for the value of a liberal arts education that fits nicely with Grinnell College’s mission to provide this type of education to students from diverse social and cultural circumstances.”

While at Knox, Archer chaired the college’s institutional planning and priorities council, co-chaired its risk management committee, successfully negotiated collective bargaining agreements, and created a new financial reporting package for the board of trustees’ finance committee.

Previously, Archer was executive director of finance and controller at DePauw, where he was responsible for all daily treasury functions of the university. He also oversaw the operations of the business office, coordinated the annual audit, and was responsible for tax reporting and other compliance requirements. He also assisted with the development of a university-wide process for timely and accurate preparation and reporting for the annual budget, served on the university resource prioritization task force, worked with a team which facilitated the move of the university bookstore to the downtown corridor as part of a grant-funded development project, and supervised the accounting and reporting for the university’s endowment.

Archer also has worked in public accounting, manufacturing compliance and production supervision, retail management, and real estate management, development, and construction. He holds a B.S. degree in accounting from Maryville University in St. Louis, Missouri. He is a certified public accountant and a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants.

At Grinnell, Archer will help steward the financial resources of the College in partnership with the president, the senior leadership team, and the board. Alongside the other members of the senior leadership team, he also will assume a broad leadership role in the development and continuous improvement of administrative practices across the institution.