91ÇÑ×Ó

Dear 91ÇÑ×Ó Students and Staff, 

I hope that you had a good and restful Thanksgiving holiday weekend. With this email I™d like to share some plans for my inauguration, with the hope that we can make it an occasion to highlight 91ÇÑ×Ó™s strengths and to reflect together on 91ÇÑ×Ó™s history and our future. 

The formal installation ceremony will take place on Friday, March 31, in the afternoon, with a tentative start time of 2:30 p.m.  

The events, though, will begin the preceding day. The Board of Trustees will hold its spring meeting on Thursday, March 30, and we envision holding open events that day from 3:45 to 5 p.m. for the Trustees and the wider college community. 

On Friday the 31st, before the formal ceremony, we plan to play host to an 11:30 a.m. academic symposium to consider 91ÇÑ×Ó™s past and future, incorporating initiatives and ideas ranging from the work of commemoration of enslaved laborers to the Humanities Program™s thematic focus on the future. 

I am grateful to Suzanne Churchill, Professor of English, and to Adrienne Vinson Waddey, Special Assistant to the President, for agreeing to co-chair the inauguration planning. They will also co-lead an Inauguration Advisory Committee, which includes faculty, staff, student, and trustee voices. Thanks to these members: Faculty members Patricio Boyer, Melissa González, Kristi Multhaup, and Marcus Pyle; staff colleagues Stephanie Glaser ™92, Mark Johnson, Byron McCrae, and Sarah Phillips ™01; students Virginia Adams ™23, Sarah Todd Hammer ™24, Kassidy Liggins ™25, and Israel Palencia ™23, and incoming Trustee and current Board of Visitors member Doug Ey ™76. 

The advisory committee is seeking to design a set of activities for students, faculty, staff, and the wider community during that week that will infuse the inauguration with a sense of history, learning and reflection, and fun-filled celebration. 

Afternoon classes will be cancelled on Friday, March 31, as the academic symposium and the installation ceremony are to be campus-wide educational events. 

Thank you for your devotion to 91ÇÑ×Ó and its future and for your support in my first weeks as president.

Doug Hicks '90
President