Pine State News

Just a few hours after the board of trustees announced via a morning email that it had voted to unanimously elect the College's next leader, the Bowdoin community got a chance to meet Safa Zaki and hear her first public remarks. 

Students, staff, faculty, trustees, and members of the Brunswick community crowded into Smith Union's Morrell Lounge Thursday afternoon to greet President-elect Zaki with loud applause and cheering.

Before Zaki took the stage, introductions and words of thanks were offered by President Clayton Rose, board chair Scott Perper ’78, and Presidential Search Committee cochairs Sydney Asbury ’03 and Bertrand E. Garcia-Moreno ’81, P’17.

"Today is the sixteenth time—only the sixteenth time—in 229 years that we have named a new president," Rose began, before adding, "Today is a particularly historic and amazing occasion." Zaki will become Bowdoin's first woman president in July.

Rose decided last spring he would step down in July 2023, precipitating an intensive search for his replacement by a nineteen-member committee made up of alumni and trustees, faculty, staff, and students.

Continuing his speech, Rose praised Zaki as an accomplished scholar, educator, and member of the academy. She is currently dean of faculty at Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts, where she has been a faculty member for nearly two decades. He described her as a person of "deep character and integrity," and as someone who "loves the liberal arts, has traveled the world, and has had an amazing lived experience."

Perper followed Rose to the lectern, saying that the board made its final decision on Wednesday, which just by chance happened to be International Women's Day. March, too, is Women's History Month. "We had a historic vote yesterday, and how appropriate that Bowdoin gets to add some history to women's history," he said. 

In her remarks, Asbury said the search committee had been impressed very soon after meeting Zaki by her leadership experience and values and knew she would have a profound and positive impact on Bowdoin. "Her authenticity and kindness came through in every step of the process," she added. 

Garcia-Moreno noted that Zaki's successful career as a computational, qualitative scientist in the humanist field of psychology makes her well-suited to lead an interdisciplinary liberal arts college with a strong sense of community and collaboration. "One of the beautiful things she will bring to campus is her ability to transcend traditional borders," he said.

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