Schedule of Inaugural Events

Friday, October 20

• 2:30-4:00 p.m. Panel: “Liberal Arts in the 21st Century”
  Keller Theatre, Lenfest Center
  Moderated by Roger Mudd '50
• Panel Participants:
• - Richard H. Ekman
• - Elizabeth Kiss
• - Pauline Yu

4:00 to 5:00 p.m. Panel Reception
Kamen Gallery, Lenfest Center

Saturday, October 21

10:30 a.m. Inauguration
Front Lawn, Lee Chapel
Rain Plan - Warner Center

12:00 Noon Inaugural Lunch
Cannan Green
Rain Plan - Doremus Gymnasium

View a complete schedule of Homecoming 2006 activities

Panel Participants:

Richard H. Ekman - President, The Council of Independent Colleges
Richard Ekman has, since 2000, been president of the CIC, the national membership service organization for private, small and mid-sized colleges and universities. He previously served as vice president for programs of Atlantic Philanthropies and, from 1991 to 1999, as secretary and senior program officer of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. From 1982 to 1991, he worked at the National Endowment for the Humanities, first as director of the Division of Education Programs, and then as director of the Division of Research Programs. His previous experience includes service as vice president and dean of Hiram College, where he was also a tenured member of the history faculty, and as assistant to the provost at the University of Massachusetts at Boston.

Ekman holds a Ph.D. from Harvard University in the history of American civilization, the institution from which he also received his A.M. and A.B. (magna cum laude) degrees. He has received honorary degrees from Marywood University and Alderson-Broaddus, Bethany, Georgetown, Hastings, Lyon, Otterbein and Ursinus colleges. He is co-author, with Richard E. Quandt, of Technology and Scholarly Communication (University of California Press, 1999).

Ekman currently serves as a member of many boards, including the National Advisory Committee of the Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute, the Advisory Board of the Johns Hopkins University Press, the Board of Overseers Visiting Committee to the Harvard University Libraries, the Advisory Board of the Louisiana State University Press and the Board of Visitors of the Dictionary of American Regional English.

Elizabeth Kiss - President, Agnes Scott College
Elizabeth Kiss became president of Agnes Scott in August 2006. Previously, she was the Nannerl O. Keohane Director of the Kenan Institute for Ethics and an associate professor of political science and philosophy at Duke University. She specializes in moral and political philosophy and has published in a number of areas including ethics, human rights, education and justice.

A 1983 graduate of Davidson College, she received a B.Phil. and D.Phil. from Oxford University, in England. A former Rhodes Scholar, she has held fellowships at the Harvard Program in Ethics and the Professions, the National Humanities Center and Melbourne University’s Centre on Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics. She taught politics at Princeton University, Randolph-Macon College and Deep Springs College.

Kiss has spoken about ethics, moral education and academic integrity to audiences around the country and has developed and led interactive ethics workshops for a wide array of groups. She is co-editing a book with Peter Euben, Debating Moral Education.

At Duke, Kiss served as interim director of the Center for Genome Ethics, Law, and Policy and as co-director of the Humanitarian Challenges at Home and Abroad FOCUS program. She has been a member and vice chair of the board of trustees of Davidson College and is on the boards of the Association for Practical and Professional Ethics and the Center for Academic Integrity.

Pauline Yu - President, American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS)
Pauline Yu was named president of the ACLS in July 2003, having served as dean of humanities in the College of Letters and Sciences at the University of California, Los Angeles, and professor of East Asian languages and cultures from 1994-2003. Prior to that appointment, she was founding chair of the Department of East Asian Languages and Literature at the University of California, Irvine (1989-2004) and on the faculty of Columbia University (1985-89) and the University of Minnesota (1976-85). She received her B.A. in history and literature from Harvard University and her M.A. and Ph.D. in comparative literature from Stanford University.

Yu is the author or editor of five books and dozens of articles on classical Chinese poetry, literary theory, comparative poetics and issues in the humanities. She has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, ACLS and NEH.

A fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Philosophical Society, she is on the board of trustees of the National Humanities Center, the board of overseers of Harvard University, the board of directors of the Teagle Foundation, the national advisory board of the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation and the senate of the Phi Beta Kappa Society.

In addition, Yu is a member of the board of trustees of the Asian Cultural Council, and the board of governors of the Hong Kong-America Center. Yu is also an adjunct senior research scholar and visiting professor in East Asian languages and cultures at Columbia University.