The Bowdoin College Board of Trustees appointed a new member, re-elected eleven others, and recognized the valued contributions to the College by members of the faculty, staff and board of trustees during meetings held on campus May 12-14, 2016.
New Trustee
The board elected Shelley A. Hearne ’83 trustee for a term of five years. Hearne, a visiting professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, is a public servant dedicated to the critical junctures where science and public policy intersect.
Hearne serves as the principal investigator for CityHealth.org, whose mission is to catalyze the forty largest US Cities to be the healthiest places possible. She also chairs the board of the Radiation Effects Research Foundation, which is the binational organization studying the health effects of the atomic bomb survivors and the Fukushima nuclear accident, and is also the executive director of the Forsythia Foundation.
Hearne was previously managing director of the Pew Health Group at The Pew Charitable Trusts. Before that, she founded and oversaw Trust for America’s Health, a national organization dedicated to the prevention of epidemics, and was executive director of the Pew Environmental Health Commission. She has served as the chair of the American Public Health Association’s Executive Board and Vice President of the Council on Education for Public Health, the accreditation body for public health schools.
Re-elected Trustees
The board re-elected Leonard W. Cotton ’71, P’01; Stephen F. Gormley ’72, P’06, P’09, P’11; Bradford A. Hunter ’78; Tasha vanderLinde Irving ’82, P’17; Ann Hambelton Kenyon ’79; George A. Khaldun ’73; Henry T. A. Moniz ’86; Kathleen Kimiko Phillips-Lohrmann ’99; Joan Benoit Samuelson ’79, P’12; John K. L. Thorndike ’02; and Karen N. Walker ’84, P’15, as trustees, each for a term of five years.
Emeritus Status
In recognition of devoted service to Bowdoin, retiring members of the faculty, staff, and board of trustees were elected to emeritus status.
Nancy Jennings, who joined the faculty in 1995, was elected Associate Professor of Education Emerita. Jennings has served many roles at the College, including that of senior faculty fellow in the Joseph McKeen Center for the Common Good, associate dean of the faculty, and chair of the education department. With research interests in instructional reform, educational policy, and rural schooling, Jennings was the recipient of a Spencer Small Research Grant in 2001 and was presented Bowdoin’s Sydney J. Karofsky Award for Junior Faculty for excellence in teaching in 2000.
Lawrence H. Simon, who joined the faculty in 1987, was elected Associate Professor of Philosophy and Environmental Studies Emeritus. Simon’s areas of research and teaching have included moral philosophy, environmental ethics, political philosophy and the philosophy of the social sciences. He edited a collection of Marx’s writings for Hackett Publishing, and has worked on the Italian philosopher Giovan Battista Vico. The focus of his most recent research has involved the normative aspects of environmental issues, especially questions of justice with regard to climate change and sustainability.
Six staff members were recognized for their dedication to the College. Judith C. Foster, who is retiring after working at Bowdoin for 40 years, was elected Laboratory Instructor and Director of Laboratories Emerita. In recognition of her fourteen years of service, S. Catherine “Katy” Longley ’76 was elected Senior Vice President for Finance and Administration & Treasurer Emerita. Michelle A. McDonough, who is retiring after working at the College for more than 42 years, was elected Bursar Emerita.
Terry Meagher, who came to Bowdoin in 1983 and stepped down after 34 seasons of coaching men’s ice hockey, among other teams, was elected Sidney J. Watson Coach and Associate Director of Athletics Emeritus. Patricia Myshrall, who began working in the Bowdoin Library in 1968, was elected Library Assistant Emerita. And for her 26 years of service to the Theater and Dance Department, Noma Petroff was elected Academic Department Coordinator Emerita.
Trustees also honored four departing board members. Gregory B. Bowes ’83, P’16, who was elected trustee in 2011; James W. MacAllen ’66, elected overseer in 1995 and trustee in 1996; H. Allen Ryan ’64, P’88, elected trustee in 2006; and Sheldon M. Stone ’74, a trustee since 2001, were all elected Trustee Emeritus.
All of the board’s elections are effective July 1, 2016.
