Coming Home

Summer 2026 Hamline Magazine

Hamline President Mayme Hostetter speaking at her installation

By Rhoda Madson
Photos by CT Ryan Photography

In first grade, Mayme Hostetter sat near a boy who was good at art. One winter day, she noticed that he had no gloves and this troubled her. She worried that if his hands got cold, he couldn’t draw or paint. She told her mother later.

“What do you think we should do?” her mother asked.

Young Mayme’s response: Get him more paints from the art store and some mittens.

What are your talents? What do you need? How can I help you succeed? Decades later, these questions still ring true for Hostetter — except now she’s looking across an entire campus community as Hamline University’s 22nd president.

Mayme Hostetter was chosen from among 90 candidates to lead Hamline University

Welcome to Hamline

Hostetter believes every student has talents and deserves opportunities.

This has been a core view no matter her role: Middle and high school English teacher, athlete and coach, researcher of reading development, president of a graduate school and now, Hamline’s leader.

Hamline is committed and clear-eyed, she said. She points to its strong connections to the civic, social and business communities of the Twin Cities, its role in the socioeconomic mobility and professional success of students and alumni, and its dedication to inclusion.

She also sees opportunities for Hamline to improve and grow its impact by increasing retention and enrollment, ensuring its students are graduating into great careers, and achieving financial sustainability.

“I deeply believe that Hamline can do all these things, and in relatively short order,” she said. “I am glad to be working with all of you to build on Hamline’s strengths together.”

President Mayme Hostetter standing at lectern

Ambition Without Hubris

Public service runs in her family. Her parents are physician-scientists; her father, a nephrologist, her mother, a pediatrician and specialist in pediatric infectious diseases; her stepmother, a specialist in sickle cell anemia.

A native of the Twin Cities, Hostetter attended Kenwood Elementary School and St. Paul Academy and Summit School (SPA). She spent many hours at lab benches and nurses’ stations while her parents worked, but knew early on that she didn’t have the stomach for medicine.

At SPA, she served on the discipline committee and got to know Dean of Students James McVeety. He said that they spent a lot of time discussing academics, ethics and basketball, her favorite sport.

“She is genuine,” McVeety said at Hostetter’s installation in November. “There was never a false note. She was ambitious without hubris — and that ambition was all focused on service.”

After graduation, she headed to Harvard University as a National Merit Scholar. She hoped to walk on the women’s basketball team. Team captain Laela Sturdy remembers her first impressions.

“What struck me immediately was both her discipline and her joy — the pure enthusiasm she brought to practice, her willingness to work harder than anyone, and her genuine desire to be part of something larger than herself,” Sturdy said at the installation.

But the crew team wanted her. Hostetter put down the basketball and learned how to row, rising to co-captain her senior year. When she wasn’t on the water, Hostetter also found time to hold down part-time jobs and edit a literary arts journal. She graduated magna cum laude with a bachelor’s degree in English and American literature.

In the Classroom

Her first teaching job was at Deerfield Academy, a boarding school in Massachusetts. She taught English, coached basketball and crew, and lived on campus.

She hoped to move to New York City eventually. One of her Deerfield students suggested she consider applying to her former school, KIPP Academy, a charter school in the Bronx. That student even called KIPP to give Hostetter a glowing recommendation.

Hostetter got an offer from KIPP and took the job. To build connections, she started eating lunch with students. In time, students learned that Hostetter loved basketball and running. KIPP later established girls’ basketball and co-ed cross-country teams, both of which she coached.

Research and Leadership Roles

After classroom teaching, she moved into research and leadership roles. She earned her EdM from Harvard Graduate School of Education and her EdD from Columbia University’s Teachers College.

At the Gabrieli Laboratory at the MIT Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, she studied the neural pathways of reading development. The brain is not hardwired to read; the brain must be taught to connect sounds to letters. She believes that cognitive research is a bridge between educational theory and classroom practice.

“It influences how teachers are trained and how students learn,” she said. “It goes back to the question: ‘How can we help every student succeed?’”

I am glad to be working with all of you to build on Hamline's strengths together.

—Mayme K. Hostetter

She returned to New York in 2008 to serve as a founding Director of Teaching and Learning at Teacher U at Hunter College. In 2011, she helped to found the Relay Graduate School of Education in New York City and was named president of Relay in 2018. Relay is built on the idea that teachers, like pilots and doctors, learn best with practice and feedback.

As she had with students, she made connections with faculty and staff. She officiated at the wedding of a friend and Relay colleague that made the New York Times’ society page.

During Hostetter’s time at Relay, the school sustained or improved many key graduate student factors, including significantly increasing the percentage of graduate students who are people of color, while increasing students’ satisfaction and sense of belonging. And, Relay earned recognition for preparing the highest- performing teachers in Colorado, Tennessee, Texas and other states. She had not looked at another job in 17 years until the Hamline opportunity arose.

She was among more than 90 candidates from across the country.

“We have to adapt without losing the core of what makes us unique,” said Cindy Gregorson ’81, chair of the search committee. “President Hostetter has done entrepreneurial, innovative work that has shifted to meet higher education needs. She has a track record of seeing what that need is. She has higher education experience but in a different lane, so she comes with ideas and perspectives we may not have seen in the past.”

Looking Ahead

At her first Hamline convocation in September 2025, Hostetter reiterated the university’s mission: “To create a diverse and collaborative community of learners dedicated to the development of knowledge, values and skills for successful lives of leadership, scholarship and service.”

Ever the teacher, she broke this “big, noble mission” into achievable pieces, and gave students a deadline. She asked them to lead, study and serve during the fall semester, and offered concrete suggestions on how to work toward those goals.

“I love seeing people at their best,” she said. “I love watching people succeed when they thought they couldn’t, when they write their first “A” paper, when they score the winning basket when they aren’t a starter. I love watching people see excellence in themselves.”