December 1, 2022 – Inauguration Information and Planning

Dear Davidson Students and Staff, 

I hope that you had a good and restful Thanksgiving holiday weekend. With this email I’d like to share some plans for my inauguration, with the hope that we can make it an occasion to highlight Davidson’s strengths and to reflect together on Davidson’s history and our future. 

The formal installation ceremony will take place on Friday, March 31, in the afternoon, with a tentative start time of 2:30 p.m.  

The events, though, will begin the preceding day. The Board of Trustees will hold its spring meeting on Thursday, March 30, and we envision holding open events that day from 3:45 to 5 p.m. for the Trustees and the wider college community. 

On Friday the 31st, before the formal ceremony, we plan to play host to an 11:30 a.m. academic symposium to consider Davidson College’s past and future, incorporating initiatives and ideas ranging from the work of commemoration of enslaved laborers to the Humanities Program’s thematic focus on the future. 

I am grateful to Suzanne Churchill, Professor of English, and to Adrienne Vinson Waddey, Special Assistant to the President, for agreeing to co-chair the inauguration planning. They will also co-lead an Inauguration Advisory Committee, which includes faculty, staff, student, and trustee voices. Thanks to these members: Faculty members Patricio Boyer, Melissa González, Kristi Multhaup, and Marcus Pyle; staff colleagues Stephanie Glaser ’92, Mark Johnson, Byron McCrae, and Sarah Phillips ’01; students Virginia Adams ’23, Sarah Todd Hammer ’24, Kassidy Liggins ’25, and Israel Palencia ’23, and incoming Trustee and current Board of Visitors member Doug Ey ’76. 

The advisory committee is seeking to design a set of activities for students, faculty, staff, and the wider community during that week that will infuse the inauguration with a sense of history, learning and reflection, and fun-filled celebration. 

Afternoon classes will be cancelled on Friday, March 31, as the academic symposium and the installation ceremony are to be campus-wide educational events. 

Thank you for your devotion to Davidson and its future and for your support in my first weeks as president.

Doug Hicks '90
President