Presidential Search Committee named

A Presidential Search Committee has been formed by the Bates College Board of Trustees to evaluate candidates and nominate a successor to President Donald W. Harward, who will retire in June 2002 after 13 years of service.

Under the charter of the college, it is the responsibility of the trustees to select a president. The full board has selected a special 16-member committee composed of Bates College trustees, members of faculty, two students, one member from alumni and one from staff employees. The committee will conduct the search and make a recommendation to the full board.

The committee is co-chaired by trustees Karen A. Harris of South Portland, Maine, and James F. Orr III of Boston. Harris is a management consultant and 1974 Bates graduate who once served as a member of the Bates Office of Admissions. Orr is the parent of a 1994 Bates graduate and is president and CEO of United Asset Management Corp. of Boston.

“Bates is in a great position to begin the search for a new president,” Harris said. “The college is stronger in every respect than it ever has been.”

In a joint letter to the Bates community, Harris and Orr said President Harward “has provided extraordinary leadership for Bates.” To build on the results of that leadership, they said that the committee will be asked to “identify the very best candidates, persons of intellectual distinction and accomplishment, proven leaders with a clear sense of the needs and values of a residential college of the liberal arts and sciences.”

Other trustees on the committee are: David O. Boone ’62 of Westlake, Ohio, retired chairman of LaGrange Products Inc.; Ann Bushmiller ’79, former associate counsel to the president of the United States, Washington, D.C.; J. Michael Chu ’80, managing general partner of Catterton Partners, Corp., in Greenwich, Conn.; Burton M. Harris ’59, a business management consultant in Swampscott, Mass.; Bruce E. Stangle ’70, chairman of Analysis Group, Inc., in Cambridge, Mass.; and Catharine R. Stimpson, honorary graduate of the Bates class of 1990 and dean of the New York University Graduate School of Arts and Science.

Faculty members on the committee are: Lillian R. Nayder, associate professor of English; Joseph Pelliccia, associate professor of biology; Kirk D. Read, associate professor of classical and romance languages and literatures, and Mary Rice-DeFosse, professor of classical and romance languages and literatures.

Other members of the Bates community on the search committee are students Tahsin I. Alam ’04 of Cambridge, Mass., and Graham F. Veysey ’04, of Shaker Heights, Ohio; Michael R. Bosse ’93, an attorney with Thompson & Bowie of Portland, Maine, and incoming vice president of the Alumni Council; and Christopher D. Lee, director of human resources.

Assistant Dean of Admissions Adam Garcia will take on an additional assignment as executive secretary to the search committee and liaison to the Bates community. Garcia has been a member of Bates admissions and financial aid offices for five years and is a 1992 Bates graduate.

The search committee held an organizational meeting March 10 and selected A.T. Kearney Executive Search of Alexandria, Va., to assist with procedural issues and in developing a candidate pool. The committee will continue to meet throughout the spring and summer. Finalists will be invited to campus in fall 2001. The committee will make periodic reports to the full board of trustees, and ultimately will make a recommendation to the full board. The new president is expected to take office in summer 2002.

Since its founding in 1855, Bates College has had just six presidents: founder Oren B. Cheney (1855–1894); George Colby Chase (1894–1920); Clifton Daggett Gray (1920–1944); Charles Franklin Phillips (1944–1967); Thomas Hedley Reynolds (1967–1989); and Donald West Harward (1989–2002).