Ringling College president announces retirement plans

Longtime Ringling College of Art and Design president Larry Thompson will retire at the end of the 2025-26 academic year, the Sarasota college announced on Thursday.

Thompson, the sixth president of the school, has been in the position for 26 years. No successor has been named, and a national search will commence with Board of Trustees Chair Joel Morganroth leading the search committee.

“When I arrived in 1999, I was so impressed with the students and the faculty and the passion they shared for art and design,’’ Thompson says in a statement. “I became committed to the vision of setting students on a path that would be not only incredibly fulfilling but financially rewarding as well. I set out to ‘shatter the myth of the starving artist.’”