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Volume CXXXIII, Number 7 |
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College prepares proper welcome
INA HOXA
STAFF WRITER
Barry Mills '72 will be inaugurated as the fourteenth president
of Bowdoin College tomorrow at 11:00 a.m.
The grand ceremony will take place in a totally transformed
Morrell Gym and will be attended by members of the Bowdoin community,
alumni, and representatives from other colleges.
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| President Mills meets with sophomore Joe Andrasko during his regular Tuesday office hours in Morrell Lounge. (Colin LeCroy, Bowdoin Orient) |
"People coming to the ceremony will see Bowdoin is
a college of the world," said Director of Alumni Relations and Chair
of the Inauguration Committee Kevin Wesley. "We have all heard President
Mills say he wants to bring the world to Bowdoin and Bowdoin to the world.
I hope that the events will reflect this idea."
Remarks will be made by music professor Mary Hunter as representative
of faculty, Meghan MacNeil '03 as representative of the student body,
and former Harvard dean Henry Rosovsky as representative of the academy.
Student music groups will also perform: the World Ensemble,
the Wind Brass Ensemble, and the Chamber Choir. Additionally, a group
of musicians will play a world premier composed by Bowdoin professor Elliot
Schwartz.
The ceremony will be followed by a luncheon in Thorne.
Although the ceremony is the crowning moment of the inauguration,
President Mills has asked that the whole weekend be filled with events
of strong intellectual engagement. The committee has accomplished this
by inviting outside authorities in sciences, humanities, and performing
arts.
Dr. Bernice Johnson Reagon, a famous scholar, composer,
singer, and activist, spoke last night in Pickard. Torsten N. Wiesel,
M.D., Nobel Prize recipient in Medicine in 1981, is talking for today's
Common Hour at 12:30 p.m. Gato Barbieri, a jazz saxophonist, is also playing
at the Inaugural Concert in Pickard at 9:00 p.m. on Friday. Each guest
speaker will hold intimate meetings with professors and students within
respective departments.
Mills was elected the fourteenth president of Bowdoin College
by the College's Board of Trustees on January 9, 2001. He follows Samuel
Harris, Class of 1833, Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, Class of 1852, Kenneth
C.M. Sills, Class of 1901, and Roger Howell, Jr., Class of 1958, as the
fifth alumnus of the College to serve as president.
Born in Providence, Rhode Island, Mills graduated in 1968
from Pilgrim High School in Warwick, Rhode Island. A Dean's List student
at Bowdoin, he graduated cum laude in 1972 with a double major in biochemistry
and government.
Mills earned his Ph.D. in biology from Syracuse University
in 1976 and his law degree from the Columbia University School of Law
in 1979.
He was most recently the deputy presiding partner of Debevoise
& Plimpton, one of the nation's preeminent international law firms.
Mills was a member of the Board of Trustees from 1994 to
2000. He originally chaired the 18-member Presidential Search Committee,
composed of representatives of the Trustees, faculty, student body, administrative
and support staff, and a member of the Alumni Council, until becoming
a candidate late in the process.
He served as chair of the Board's Student Affairs Committee
and as a member of the Academic Affairs Committee.
Mills lives in Brunswick with his wife, Karen Gordon Mills, and their three sons, William, Henry, and George.