Oren Cheney, left, was the first president of Bates College in Lewiston. Its current president, Garry Jenkins, will be formally installed in the office Oct. 27. Bates College
LEWISTON — Bates College is getting ready for the formal inauguration of its new president.
The college plans to celebrate its new leader, Garry Jenkins, on Friday, Oct. 27.
Jenkins, the ninth Bates president since its founding in 1855, will participate in a forum that morning with his counterparts at Smith College and Mount Holyoke College about “current issues in higher education, and the promise of the liberal arts.”
Jenkins, who took the job in July, will be installed publicly as Bates’ president with a ceremony and speech at 2:30 p.m. in Merrill Gymnasium.
The event will mark only the eighth time that Bates has had a formal ceremony because its first president and founder, Oren Cheney, never had one and a couple of other presidents were merely interim holders of the office.
The first, in 1894, saw the handover of the position from Cheney to George Colby Chase in the old chapel in Hathorn Hall, the oldest building on campus.
Cheney gave a long address that September day detailing the early history of the college before closing on a more personal note.
“My life and my all have been identified with this college,” Cheney said. “But in the battle of life, the time comes to all men to put off the armor.”
“For some years, I have purposed to do so at the end of the 40 years’ service which closes today,” he said. “If there remains a longing to bring back my young manhood, I cannot help it.”
“I have walked this hall at midnight and wept when times were dark,” he said, and often prayed “when no earthly help seemed available.”
“There is not a tree or building or spot on this campus but seems a part of myself,” Cheney said.
He closed his talk with the hope that God would bless his successor “and the dear college” he had given his life to create and nurture.
Then Cheney handed over the keys to the college to U.S. Rep. Nelson Dingley, the owner of the Lewiston Evening Journal. After praising the college founder, Dingley introduced Chase and gave him the keys.
“I count myself happy in being permitted to receive these symbols of responsibility,” Chase said.
Chase said the college “exists for the sake of a better community, a better commonwealth, a better society in the broadest sense of the word,” an idea that its proponents continue to expound generations later.
The past two presidents have been women — Elaine Tuttle Hansen from 2002-2011 and Clayton Spencer from 2012 until June 2023.
Jenkins, a New Jersey native who served most recently as dean of the University of Minnesota Law School, is the first Black president at one of the first colleges in the nation to accept women and black students, which it has done from the day it opened its doors.
The forum and the installation Oct. 27 will be livestreamed by the college.
Those with tickets to attend the installation should be aware that doors to the gymnasium will open at 1:30 p.m. The college advises everyone to be seated by 2:15 p.m.
For more information, see Bates’ website.
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