One year ago, I mentioned on this blog that Fran Fergusson, the President of Vassar College, had announced her retirement. Fran had been President since 1986 and was there while I was a student from 1995 to 1999. This morning, I received an e-mail from the Board of Trustees, declaring that they unanimously selected a new person. Although the college is 145 years old, this new appointee will only be the tenth president in the school's history.
Dear Members of the Vassar Community,
It is our pleasure to announce that on Saturday, January 7, the Board of Trustees of Vassar College unanimously elected Catharine Bond (Cappy) Hill as the tenth president of Vassar College, beginning July 1, 2006.
Currently the Provost and John J. Gibson Professor of Economics at Williams College, Cappy Hill is a noted economist whose work focuses on higher education affordability and access, as well as economic development and reform in Africa.
The election of Cappy is the culmination of an extensive, nine-month national search to find the successor to President Frances Fergusson, who last year announced she would step down as Vassar’s president at the end of the 2005 – 2006 academic year. Cappy was the unanimous selection of the fourteen-member search committee, which reviewed more than 200 candidates.
A 1976 summa cum laude graduate of Williams College, Cappy also went on to earn a B.A. and M.A. from Brasenose College, Oxford University, with First Class Honours in politics, philosophy and economics, and a Ph.D. in economics from Yale University. A member of the Williams economics faculty since 1985, she has held the position of provost at Williams, where she has major financial and academic responsibilities, since July 1999. The depth and breadth of Cappy’s portfolio as provost make her one of the most highly qualified senior academic administrators in the country.
To learn more about the tenth President of Vassar College, we invite you to visit our 10th President website.
We know you will join us in enthusiastically welcoming Cappy and her family to the Vassar community.
