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Profile of President Barry Mills

Barry Mills was inaugurated as Bowdoin's 14th president in October 2001 as the College was beginning its 200th academic year.

During his tenure as president, Mills has underscored the primacy of Bowdoin’s academic program and has worked with the faculty to redefine a liberal arts education for the twenty-first century. Together with Dean for Academic Affairs Craig McEwen, Mills led the first major curriculum reform at Bowdoin since the early 1980s and has successfully recommitted the College to the goal of expanding ethnic, religious, and socioeconomic diversity among students and employees. During this period, the percentage of students of color in the first-year class climbed from 14 percent to nearly 30 percent. Mills has worked to increase national visibility for Bowdoin and also initiated a comprehensive campus master planning study in the fall of 2002 in order to guide future development on the campus. He has worked to strengthen and increase support for the arts at the College, moving forward on a long-planned renovation of the Walker Art Building, which houses the Bowdoin College Museum of Art, and a conversion of the Curtis Pool building into a 300-seat recital hall. Student residential life has also been improved through the construction of new residence halls and the renovation of existing residential facilities. Mills has also emphasized sustainability efforts at the College and the need to build Bowdoin’s endowment in support of the academic program and student financial aid.

President Mills, who holds a doctorate in biology as well as a law degree, previously served as the deputy presiding partner of Debevoise & Plimpton in New York City, one of the nation's preeminent international law firms. He joined the firm in 1979 and became a partner in 1986. His work at Debevoise concentrated on corporate law, real estate and corporate finance.

Born in Providence, Rhode Island, President Mills graduated in 1968 from Pilgrim High School in Warwick, Rhode Island. A Dean's List student at Bowdoin, Mills graduated cum laude in 1972 with a double major in biochemistry and government. He earned his doctorate in biology in 1976 at Syracuse University. He earned his law degree at the Columbia University School of Law in 1979, where he was a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar. He currently serves on the board of directors of Lexicon Genetics Incorporated; Maine Bank & Trust Co., a Maine bank subsidiary of Chittenden Bank; and Galileo Fund Management Limited, as well as several philanthropic boards.  

President Mills is married to Karen Gordon Mills, a founder and managing director of Solera Capital, LLC, a private equity firm located in New York City. She graduated magna cum laude from Radcliffe in 1975 with a degree in economics and earned her MBA at the Harvard Business School in 1977. She is currently a member of the Harvard University Board of Overseers. President and Karen Mills have three sons.

Barry Mills was a member of the Bowdoin College Board of Trustees from 1994 until 2000. He follows Samuel Harris (1867-71), Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain (1871-83), Kenneth C.M. Sills (1918-52), and Roger Howell, Jr. (1969-78) as the fifth alumnus of the College to serve as president.