Inaugural Ceremony Archive
William A. Plapinger
Chair, Vassar College Board of Trustees
Good afternoon. I am Bill Plapinger, chair of the Vassar College Board of Trustees, a member of the legendary Vassar class of 1974 and the proud parent of a member of the class of 2010, and it is my privilege today to welcome students, alumnae and alumni, delegates from colleges, universities and learned and professional societies, members of the Hudson Valley community, staff, faculty and faculty emeriti, trustees and former trustees, President Emerita Fergusson, and our speakers and other honored guests, to this historic occasion, the inauguration of Catharine Bond Hill as the president of Vassar College, only the 10th President in the college's 145-year history.
After being at Vassar for only a few weeks, President Hill met in August for the first time with the Executive Committee of the Board of Trustees. At that meeting, she began her remarks by saying that, even after only a short time at the college, she was glad to report that she had made the right choice. She quickly added, with her characteristically understated humor, but firm self-confidence, "And I think you did, too." We couldn't agree more.
As chair of the board and, before that, chair of the Presidential Search Committee that selected Cappy, I -- together with my trustee, faculty and student colleagues on the Search Committee -- have thought a great deal about Vassar and its future, including about what constitutes the right leadership for an institution with Vassar's history, its current strengths and challenges, its role in the world of higher education and in the world generally, its importance to faculty, staff, alumnae and alumni, and to current and future students. In thinking about these questions, one is necessarily drawn to the permanence of certain core values.
Considering these matters has taken me back to my own time as a student at Vassar. I arrived here 36 years ago, in the late summer of 1970, a member of the now legendary class of 1974, the first coeducational freshman class at the first institution of higher education in the United States established for women. It was a time of significant change at Vassar and of turmoil in our country and the world. In many ways, my experiences and those of my classmates differed from the experiences of students who came before, and after, us - don't all generations say this?
But despite the many changes that continuously occur at a living, thriving, institution like Vassar, whenever those devoted to this institution gather together, it is not the differences in experiences we talk about. Yes, we marvel at, and welcome, the changes of an ever more diverse community, an ever more distinguished faculty, an ever more accomplished student body, beautiful buildings like the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center, the Vogelstein Center for Drama and Film and the newly renovated Kenyon Hall. We want the college, always, to increase its resources and to be current in what it offers. We never want it to stand still -- at least not for long!
But we always come back to the fundamentals that have been in place since Matthew Vassar founded this "Magnificent Enterprise" in 1861, its history of independence of thought, of innovation and of excellence, characteristics by which Vassar graduates, and the college, have long been known.
These qualities are every bit as important today. As the first chair of the Vassar board to reside outside the United States, I can say with conviction that the global, national, and local contexts are as complex as they have ever been. Since the 19th century, Vassar students have been told, in the words of Professor Lucy Maynard Salmon, to "go to the source" to find their own answers.
Being a good citizen of one's country and of the world means you often have to sort through an almost overwhelming amount of information to understand what is happening, come to your own conclusions and act on them. What better preparation for that than a Vassar education, or, indeed, a liberal arts education at any one of the many distinguished institutions of higher education represented here today.
And we do not think we could have found a better leader to continue those traditions than Catharine Bond Hill -- someone steeped in the residential, liberal arts tradition from her own undergraduate years; someone who, like the first men at Vassar, was an early pioneer in bringing gender diversity to her own Williams College; someone who had a distinguished career as both a scholar and an administrator for more than 20 years at one of the finest residential liberal arts colleges in America; someone who cares deeply about nurturing and protecting the kind of education she and I, and so many of you, have been fortunate enough to have; someone who has engaged with excellence at every point in her life.
But in a world where, as it is often said, the only constant is change, protecting an institution - even one as fine as this one - is not enough. As great as Vassar is today, none of the many constituencies of Vassar wants to stop there. The search for a new president was not about finding someone who would be content with the status quo, and we do not think we have found someone who will be.
Today I stand before you, full of pride for Vassar College and what I believe it will achieve in the years ahead. I am, like you, full of expectations, not for an easy future - I wasn't educated to expect that - but for challenges and successes.
It is often said that the paramount responsibility of a Board of Trustees of a college or university is to appoint the president, and I and my fellow trustees believe we have found in Catharine Bond Hill exactly the right person to whom to entrust the leadership of Vassar College in this next stage of its history. We look forward to working with her to our shared goals for many years to come.