Harward retiring from Bates College Presidency in 2002

Donald W. Harward announced June 1 that he will conclude his tenure as president of Bates College in June 2002, at the end of the 2001-02 academic year.

Harward has served as Bates president since October 1989, creating an uncommonly close link between campus and community, strengthening qualities of the college, its faculty and its programs, presiding over the most successful fund-raising campaigns in the college’s history and a building program for the college that has included its most extensive facility development. During Harward’s tenure, the college consistently has been considered among the top 25 liberal arts colleges in the nation, attracting the most talented study body any time in its history.

Harward stressed that the announcement two years prior to retirement is intended to allow for the most effective and productive planning for the college: “We have achieved much and we have planned much to accomplish at the College and in the community during the next two years — and we are going to do it,” Harward said. “There will be no pause and there will be no backing away.”

In a letter this week to Bates faculty and staff, Harward said “it is with great respect for you, and for the work of the College, that I write to inform you that the Board of Trustees has graciously supported my decision to complete my service as president of Bates in June 2002.”

“While I was sorry to hear that there is now a set retirement date, Bates is a measurably greater institution for Don Harward’s years of service,” said James L. Moody Jr., chairman of the Bates College Board of Trustees. “It is stronger in every respect: academically, financially and in its ties to the Lewiston-Auburn community.”

Jill N. Reich, Bates vice president for academic affairs and dean of the faculty, said the two-year lead time will be appreciated by the Bates College community.

“Don has made this decision in a thoughtful and wise way,” Reich said. “It ensures that this transition will be smooth, effective and worthy of the talent and accomplishments so characteristic of his tenure at Bates. We are committed to moving forward his plans for the College. In this time when college presidents serve four to five years at most, we are especially grateful that Bates has enjoyed the fruits of Don’s long tenure, wisdom and untiring effort.”

In the local community, Harward is the founding member and chair of LA Excels, a strategic team that includes the political, civic, business, educational, health services, social and cultural leadership of Lewiston and Auburn, Maine.

Ronald Lebel, an Auburn attorney and board member of Androscoggin County Chamber of Commerce, earlier this year presented Harward with the 2000 Chamber of Commerce Public Service Leadership Award. In his remarks, he said that Harward “has done something no one before him has ever accomplished: He has transformed how this community sees itself and, in so doing, has permanently altered the course of its history and its destiny.”

Harward said Bates College has also benefitted by renewing its community links. “We are distinctly proud of the progress recently made in discovering and confirming our own sense of place in Lewiston-Auburn, and in Maine,” Harward said. “We are of the community and not merely in it. We have responsibilities and opportunities that are linked to the broader community and its citizens. LA Excels and other manifestations of those responsibilities and collaborative opportunities have put us in a different position than we were as an institution just a few years ago. Confirming our ‘rootedness,’ we are actualizing the promise of assisting the community in its own realization of its potential. Together, the College and the Lewiston-Auburn community are on a roll,” he said. We have much to build upon and our successes will continue.”

Before taking office at Bates, Harward was vice-president for academic affairs at the College of Wooster in Ohio. Prior to his tenure at the College of Wooster, he served as chair of the department of philosophy, then director of the University Honors Program at the University of Delaware.

Harward holds a doctorate in philosophy from the University of Maryland. Among his areas of scholarly interest and published research are the foundations of mathematics, analytic philosophy, epistemology, and logic.

He serves on the board of national and area education, business and social service organizations. He is a published contributor to professional discussions regarding institutional planning, research and liberal education, and the development of service learning. He also serves on the board of directors of corporations, and social and public service organizations. He serves on the national executive committee of Campus Compact, a national program that assists colleges with academically oriented community service initiatives.