page_title: Clayton Spencer
section_title: Presidency (2012 - present)
hierarchical_section_title: Clayton Spencer / Bates College / Presidency (2012 - present)
caption_attribution_description: English: View from Hathorn Hall
context_page_description: Ava Clayton Spencer is an American lawyer, academic administrator, and former policy maker. She is the current and 8th President of Bates College, having taken office in July 2012. Previous to her assumption of the presidency, she served as the Vice President for Institutional Policy at Harvard University from 2005 to 2012.
  Spencer was born in Concord, North Carolina. She attended Williams College in Williamstown, the University of Oxford in England, Harvard University in Cambridge and Yale University in New Haven. Upon her graduation, she worked as an attorney in Boston, before becoming the chief education counsel to the U.S. Senate Committee on Labor and Human Resources from 1993 to 1997. She was tapped by Harvard to serve as Associate Vice President for Higher Education Policy for Harvard College from 1998 to 2005.
  Her tenure over Bates has seen a marked increase in financial assets, major campus expansion, and increased academic competitiveness. She has, however, been criticized for failing to quell biases in higher education and socioeconomic inequality. Spencer has publicly criticized U.S. president Donald Trump, Maine Governor Paul LePage, and numerous members of the U.S.
context_section_description: On October 26, 2012, Spencer was installed as the eighth and second female President of Bates College, in Lewiston, Maine. Her inauguration speech, “Questions worth asking” drew 2,500 students, faculty, alumni, and members of the American collegiate educational system in Merrill Gymnasium.
  Spencer delivered her installation address, saying: "At Bates, we claim this union of excellence and opportunity as a core element of our identity, and we need to continue to build on this deep aspect of who we are. As a practical matter this means redoubling our efforts to recruit students from a wide range of backgrounds, and it means maintaining an unwavering commitment to financial aid." Spencer assumed the presidency after the first female and 7th president of college–Elaine Tuttle Hansen–stepped down after a nine-year tenure to take a leadership position at Johns Hopkins University.
caption: Spencer was inaugurated on the historical quad in July 2012.
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