David A. Greene will be inaugurated as Colby College’s 20th president on Saturday.
WATERVILLE — David A. Greene will be inaugurated Saturday as the 20th president of Colby College.
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The inauguration, open to the public, will be held at 2:30 p.m. on the lawn of Miller Library on the Mayflower Hill campus. Greene will give his first public address as president of the 201-year-old college.
He took office July 1 and succeeds William Adams, who retired this year and now is chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities, a position he was appointed to by President Barack Obama.
Adams was Colby’s president for 14 years.
Greene’s inaugural address will focus on the future of the college, including its relationship with the city of Waterville, a Colby spokeswoman said.
“We’re really excited to have him here. He has tremendous vision for the future of the college, some of which he will speak about Saturday,” said Ruth Jacobs, assistant vice president for communications at Colby. “He will also be speaking about his vision for Colby and its relationship with Waterville and the ways in which we may work together in the coming years.”
Greene comes to Colby from the University of Chicago, where he was executive vice president. He previously held leadership posts at Brown University and Smith College.
Inauguration weekend starts at 1 p.m. Friday with a faculty showcase at Given Auditorium in the Bixler Art and Music Center on campus.
Faculty speakers are Catherine Besteman, the Francis F. Bartlett and Ruth K. Bartlett Professor of Anthropology; D. Whitney King, the Dr. Frank and Theodora Miselis Professor of Chemistry; Lydia Moland, associate professor of philosophy; Philip Nyhus, associate professor of environmental studies; Andrea Tilden, the J. Warren Merrill Associate Professor of Biology; and John Turner, associate professor of history.
Faculty members will talk about their work and collaboration with students until 4 p.m. At 4:30 p.m., Greene will moderate “Reflections on the Faculty Showcase.”
The day will end with fireworks, which may be viewed from the Colby Green.
Colby students will present posters about their research from 10 a.m. to noon in the atrium at the Diamond Building.
At 10:30 a.m., a panel discussion called “The Role of Liberal Arts in Developing Future Leaders: Toward a More Engaged – and Civil – Citizenry” will be moderated by L. Sandy Maisel, William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of Government.
The discussion will include those who will receive honorary degrees from Greene during inauguration ceremonies. They are David Axelrod, founder of the bipartisan Institute of Politics at the University of Chicago and former campaign adviser to Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama; U.S. Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine; Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot, a sociologist and Emily Hargroves Fisher Professor of Education at Harvard Graduate School of Education; and Robert J. Zimmer, mathematician and the University of Chicago president since 2006.
A reception will follow the inauguration and will be held on the Green.
Amy Calder can be contacted at 861-9247 or at:
acalder@centralmaine.com
Twitter: @AmyCalder17
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