The Bowdoin College Board of Trustees granted tenure to a faculty member, re-elected five members of the board, and recognized the valued contributions to the College by members of the faculty, staff, and board of trustees during meetings held on campus May 11-13, 2017.
Tenure
Trustees granted tenure to Professor of Theater and Dance Sarah Bay-Cheng. Chair of the Theater and Dance Department, Bay-Cheng teaches performance history and theory, dramatic literature, and digital media performance. Her research focuses on the intersections between performance and media, including histories of cinema, social media, and technology in performance.
Re-elected Trustees
The board re-elected David A. Morales ’97, Mary Hogan Preusse ’90, David J. Roux, and James E. “Jes” Staley ’79, P’11 trustees, each for a term of five years. Donald A. Goldsmith ’65, P’04 was re-elected for a one-year term.
Emeritus Status
In recognition of devoted service to Bowdoin, retiring members of the faculty, staff, and board of trustees
Barbara Held, who joined the faculty in 1979, was elected Barry N. Wish Research Professor of Psychology and Social Studies Emerita. Held received the 2012 Joseph B. Gittler Award, which recognizes “the most scholarly contribution to the philosophical foundations of psychological knowledge,” by the American Psychological Foundation, of the American Psychological Association. Her 2001 book, Stop Smiling, Start Kvetching: A 5-Step Guide to Creative Complaining, challenging what Held calls “the tyranny of the positive attitude in America” and her willingness to offer counterpoint as a vocal critic of “the power of positive thinking” brought her extensive media attention, including coverage by The New York Times, National Public Radio, and The Today Show.
Paul Sarvis, who has taught dance technique, repertory, choreography, and dance history at Bowdoin since 1987, was elected Senior Lecturer in Dance Performance Emeritus. He has taught Scottish country dancing all over the US and Canada—but it is rooted in the Cecchetti method of ballet and in Merce Cunningham techniques and perspectives. Sarvis has performed with companies in San Francisco, Washington, DC, New York City, and Maine. He is one-third of the Portland-based dance trio Berg, Jones, & Sarvis, known for their collaborations with artists in other media and their joint projects with other choreographers and for, as one critic put it, “their sardonic, site-specific works.”
Susan Tananbaum, who joined the faculty in 1990, was elected Professor of History Emerita. She most recently taught courses in British, Jewish, and European history. Her research
Judith Montgomery, who has worked in the library since 1978, was elected Associate Librarian Emerita. Some examples of Montgomery’s work and contributions to the library include the evolution of the library’s technology infrastructure and electronic resources program, the Colby, Bates, and Bowdoin partnership, the Children’s Celebration of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, and the recent publication of the Plants and Flowers of Maine: Kate Furbish’s Watercolors
Pamela Phillips, who arrived at the College in 1989, was elected Director of Parent Giving Emerita. Phillips’ leadership of parent giving and the Parents Executive Committee has placing those programs among the very best in the nation. A skilled organizer and fundraiser, Phillips has engaged countless Bowdoin parents in volunteer fundraising, generating important financial support for the College and fostering many close relationships with Bowdoin’s most significant contributors.
Lester Prue, who started his Bowdoin career in 1976, was elected Dining Services, Unit Manager Emeritus. Beginning as a cook for Psi U (now Quinby), Prue moved to Bowdoin Dining in 2000. In the almost twenty years he has run Moulton’s operations as unit manager, he has seen meal service through power outages and flooding, overseeing the production of an extraordinary 375,000 meals per year.
Delwin Wilson ’92, who began working at the College two years after graduating, was elected Director of Finance & Campus Services Emeritus. Wilson began his career working in events and summer programs, and in community relations. Later, as director of events and summer programs, he implemented the first web-based scheduling system for events, developed and instituted the Bowdoin College Art Camp, and served as secretary to the Commission on Residential Life. After four years as director of facilities administration, he stepped into the role of director of finance and campus services, championing environmental stewardship on campus, supporting and co-chairing the Sustainability Implementation Committee, overseeing energy-efficiency projects, and coordinating the regulatory review and approval process for the College’s 1.2 Megawatt solar power project.
John Gibbons ’64, P’88, P’91, P’96, P’03, who was elected to the board of trustees in 2002, was elected Trustee Emeritus. In his fifteen years as a trustee, he has served on the board’s Academic Affairs committee for five years and the Facilities and Properties committee for four; the Development and College Relations committee and the Audit committee for one year each, and Financial Planning for the last thirteen years in a row. But even with that dedication to Financial Planning, Gibbon’s largest role, and his most influential, has been his service in the critical new area of information and technology. He served first as part of the Information Technology Advisory Committee for eight years, five of them as chair, during the earliest days of Bowdoin’s adaptation to digital technologies and then six more as part of a regular board committee, three of them as chair.
Board actions regarding the granting of tenure, the election of its members, and of faculty and staff to emeritus/emerita status are effective July 1, 2017.
