Clayton Spencer, chosen to be president of Bates College

Vice President for Policy A. Clayton Spencer has been selected as Bates College’s eighth president, Bates announced Sunday. Spencer, who served under four Harvard presidents, has been an influential advisor to University President Drew G. Faust and has played a role in shaping some the most significant Harvard initiatives of the past decade.


“Bates has made a brilliant choice,” said University President Drew G. Faust in an email to Harvard faculty and senior administrators. “Clayton ... has been an astute and always forthright advisor to Harvard’s presidents, deans, and governing boards for the last fifteen years.”


Spencer’s policy contributions include helping to shepherd the Harvard-Radcliffe merger, spearheading the creation of a summer program for local high school students, and contributing to the broad expansion of need-based tuition support under the Harvard Financial Aid Initiative, according to Faust.


“I have been blessed to work closely with her on every aspect of admission and financial aid during her time at Harvard,” said Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid William R. Fitzsimmons ’67 in a statement. “Her contributions have transformed Harvard in countless ways and future generations of Harvard students will benefit from her tenure.”


Spencer’s work with educational policy issues extends back to her time as a staffer for Senator Edward M. Kennedy ’54-’56. During her tenure with Kennedy, she worked as chief education counsel for the U.S. Senate Committee on Labor and Human Resources.


Spencer—whose father served as president of Mary Baldwin and Davidson Colleges—attended Phillips Exeter Academy before matriculating at Williams College. She sits on the Board of Trustees at both of her alma maters.


Asked how her departure would affect the administration at Harvard, Spencer said that her departure “coincides with a moment in Drew’s presidency when she has assembled a marvelous team.”


Spencer will serve out the rest of the academic year at Harvard, Bates spokesman Roland Adams said in an e-mail. That will mark the end of what will be a 15-year run at the Cambridge institution for Spencer, who has been adviser to four Harvard presidents, including current president Drew G. Faust.


In an e-mail to Harvard faculty, Faust said the Maine college had made “a brilliant choice.’’


Spencer “has been an astute and always forthright advisor to Harvard’s presidents, deans, and governing boards for the last fifteen years, bringing her exceptional intellect, her wisdom, her unfailing sense of humor, and her deep commitment to higher education and its fundamental values to bear on the wide range of issues facing the University,’’ Faust wrote.


A Harvard administrator since 1997, Spencer began there after a career working in Congress as chief education counsel for Senator Edward M. Kennedy.


At Harvard, she aided the merger in 1999of Harvard and Radcliffe College, oversaw grant programs, and helped redesign the financial aid system to improve access for low- and middle-income students.