Presidents Give Voice to the Enduring Values That Have Guided Davidson College Across Time
February 27, 2026
- Author
- Lisa Patterson
Five Davidson College presidents, representing 42 years of leadership of the college, gathered on campus this week at a tense moment for higher education.
Political polarization and artificial intelligence’s upending of classwork and job markets alike have rattled campuses. Those pressures also spotlight how the Davidson experience of cultivating deep skills and personal integrity always has equipped students to navigate the ambiguities of the world. Those values that endure are indispensable in this time of disruption.
Former presidents John Kuykendall ’59, Bobby Vagt ’69, Tom Ross ’72 and Carol Quillen joined President Doug Hicks ’90 against a backdrop of memorabilia from their respective service — a limited-edition John Kuykendall bobble-head among them — for a wide-ranging discussion of how the college’s primary purpose, affordability and access, athletics done right, and passionate teaching uniquely meet this moment for higher education.
The gathering culminated a day of celebration — at a Common Hour gathering attended by the presidents, the college announced more than $47 million of gift commitments to launch the D.G. and Harriet Wall Martin Institute for Public Good.
The following quotations were edited for brevity and clarity.
John Kuykendall
Davidson College’s 15th President
As a Davidson senior, Kuykendall helped transform the college’s student-run honor system into the distinctive community of trust that exists today.
When I think about the Honor Code at Davidson, I’ve tried to sort out in my mind three different ways you can have an honor code. You can have it as a matter of chivalry, a kind of noblesse oblige; it also can have something to do with discipline; but at Davidson it has a very distinctive root -- it’s rooted in the Reformed Tradition and that part of our reformed theology that says there is room for growth and development, and through the grace of God we become better people than we are. And one of the things I’ve always thought about Davidson is that Davidson needs to get better, which is a real positive in my mind for getting things done.
The Honor Council today has absolutely different responsibilities than we had. I remember when I was president, we had a real conflict over whether spell check was going to be a problem, and now we have AI. But I do think so much at its core what Davidson’s all about, as James Russell Lowell wrote, “New occasions teach new duties,” an Honor Council will discover ways to be responsible in this new environment we have, in this brave new world.
Davidson College’s 15th President
Bobby Vagt
Davidson College’s 16th President
On the 2007 establishment of The Davidson Trust, which makes it possible for talented students of all backgrounds to imagine coming to Davidson. The college meets 100% of financial need of accepted students through a combination of grants and student employment (without any required loans).
It was all about who we are as an institution. We are Davidson — how can we sit here and not try to make it perfectly possible for any student who wants to come here to attend? The conversation grew up around that. At first, we limited debt and took little steps, and then we got serious about the need to eliminate debt altogether. And that’s when the second issue came up, which is, this costs money and can we afford it? We had to dial up our courage to be able to say it's going to be a risk. But we looked at our alumni body and what they had supported in the past, and we believed in them. And I will tell you on that day when it was voted on, and I’m going to get up a lump in my throat, it was unanimous — there were 42 trustees there and there was not one dry eye in the place. It was the right thing to do. And this board of trustees took a courageous step and the credit all goes to them.
Davidson College’s 16th President
Tom Ross
Davidson College’s 17th President
I came [as president] at a time when this school was facing real challenges financially, in the middle of the 2008 recession. We were trying to get the trust up and running, and we had to make some tough decisions. I will never forget how this college pulled together as a community to make it through those days. We committed to each other that the one thing we’d be certain of is our students would get the same education in the middle of a recession as they would have gotten during a boom time. That the only way they’d know about a recession is if they read the newspaper. The second thing we committed to was we weren’t going to lay anybody off. We were a family and we were going to stick together. I think that is one of the enduring values of this place — it is a community of people who care about each other.
Davidson College’s 17th President
Carol Quillen
Davidson College’s 18th President
The statement of purpose grounded me as I sought to learn what made Davidson a unique place. The college’s primary purpose is to assist students in developing humane instincts and disciplined and creative minds for lives of leadership and service. There are other great phrases in the statement of purpose. The idea of pursuing truth with all your faculties, in every possible way, and the quest for truth as being at the heart of an intellectual and educational community – Davidson takes that really seriously…Davidson is a community. When you are lucky enough to have a job like this, your job is to create a context where a community can be more hopeful about what we can achieve together than they are afraid of what they might lose. Davidson makes that kind of leadership possible. I think our students do it every day. It’s a real privilege to be in a place where that sense of shared leadership is possible. I don’t think I thought of leadership that way until I came to Davidson.
Davidson College’s 18th President
Doug Hicks
When I was thinking about graduate school and thinking about my career…my best advisors, my closest advisors said I should get the broadest education possible even though everything in your Ph.D. will drive you to narrowness. But to address issues that we're going to face in higher ed and in society requires broad thinking. It was a liberal arts argument: Write your dissertation not as a dissertation, but as a book that’s broad-thinking…We have really managed to live our values in recent years…we’re focused on that one thing: educating graduates for lives of leadership and service, and that’s our job. The centrality of freedom of expression is very important; I’ve doubled down on that. Now the college’s commitment to free expression hangs in the heart of Chambers across from students’ signatures on the Honor Code; it’s very important that every student and every alum feels and understands that this is their college, and people are going to lead and serve in different ways. We also have to be able to respectfully disagree, and learn from each other.
Davidson College President
