‘ He Just Gets B ates ’

Announced on March 1 as the next Bates president, Garry W. Jenkins quickly made tracks to campus to meet his new community

BY JAY BURNS

In 2007, Melissa Baker Linville graduated from Bates with a sociology degree and a clear idea of what she most valued about her Bates education: professors like Emily Kane, Heidi Taylor, and Francesco Duina, who pushed her, supported her, and expanded the way she thought about the world.

Planning to pursue public interest law, she headed to Ohio State for law school, where she discovered a professor who reminded her of her prized Bates teachers.

That law professor was Garry W. Jenkins, currently dean of the University of Minnesota Law School but set to become Bates’ ninth president this summer.

Linville, who is now director of development for the Ohio State Legal Services Association, recalls Jenkins’ influence, imparted through a program that he co-founded and directed to help law students think more creatively and expansively about their opportunities as lawyers and leaders.

“He was always keyed into helping us think on a broad and holistic scale, to critically and thoughtfully look at our education, our experiences, our internships — the whole experience of being a law student,” she said — like her Bates professors, who “push your mindset so much.”

Asked to describe Jenkins in one word, Linville paused. “I’m trying to think of a word that’s good enough,” she said with a laugh.

Linville had a head start on understanding what Garry Jenkins can bring to Bates as president, but the rest of the

Bates community quickly got up to speed on March 7 during a meet-and-greet in Alumni Gymnasium for faculty, staff, and students. The latter group detoured to buffet tables of snacks, courtesy of Dining Services, before quickly filling the bleachers.

Heads were on the swivel, seeking to spy the main attraction. Among the crowd were members of the men’s basketball team, repping the team nicely in their Bobcat sweatshirts. We asked them to describe the vibein one word. The first couple of words dribbled out, the rest came like a fast break:

“Optimism.”

“Excitement.”

“Support.”

“Community.”

“Opportunity.”

And finally: “Spirit.”

Their words set the stage, or the court as it were, for a historic Bates moment. A few minutes later came the first smattering of applause as Jenkins walked into the gym. Then more and more applause, and then a standing ovation, everyone fully aware that the college’s next president was in the house.

The program kicked off with remarks by Bates Board of Trustees Chair John Gillespie ’80 and by fellow trustee Andrea Bueschel ’90, who co-chaired the Presidential Search Committee with trustee Greg Ehret ’91. Their words included giving thanks to the search committee and to President Clayton Spencer, who will complete her presidency on June 30, 2023.

Gillespie noted that while the day appropriately celebrated a coming chapter in Bates history, “it should not go unsaid that our current chapter — the one that began with a similar announcement, at a similar event, in late 2011 — has been one of stunning achievement, innovation, and growth for Bates. All under the inspired leadership of President Clayton Spencer. Clayton, you have our most profound and heartfelt thanks.”

Bueschel offered a ringing endorsement of the work of the 17-member search committee from her professional perspective as a senior vice president and chief of staff to the president at Rutgers University. “This committee worked amazingly well together over the course of five months — as well as, or better than, any I’ve ever experienced,” she said.

“Every single one of our committee members did a brilliant job of representing Bates in all its many dimensions. And in the end, they reached consensus — unanimous, authentic, thrilling consensus — about who the right person was to become Bates’ next president.”

Bueschel explained how the search committee got to know Jenkins beyond his impressive resumé, and how they “quickly learned that he just gets Bates. He sees where we are and where we have the potential to go.”

And somehow, she said, “he already loved this place, from our very first moments with him, having never even set foot on this campus. And that love just radiated through our every moment with him.”

The gathering in Alumni

Gym was one stop on a whirlwind, two-day visit by Jenkins and his husband, Jon J. Lee, who is a law professor. There were meetings with the college’s senior leadership, a visit to the College Store for Bates swag, dinner with the search committee, and a photography portrait session on the Bates campus — in front of Coram Library, Alumni Gymnasium, and Hathorn Hall — a result of which is on this issue’s cover. And whether it’s the new Bates president or a new Bates student, a campus tour is always on the itinerary during an initial college visit. Led by Bates Admission Fellow Ilana Rosker ’23 of Lexington, Mass., Jenkins and Lee visited iconic Bates places, including Gomes Chapel. Even the Bobcat stopped by to meet the new president, spending a few minutes on Alumni Walk with the president-elect and President

Spencer, seeming to confirm (since the Bobcat doesn’t say much) that, indeed, it was a great day to be a Bobcat.

But the marquee moment was in Alumni Gym. Following the introductions by Gillepsie and Bueschel, it was Jenkins’ turn to offer his own words, covering personal and professional ground with warmth and sincerity. The audience responded with several rounds of sustained applause that reverberated throughout a historic Bates space that’s seen its fair share of big moments since it opened 95 years ago.

Becoming president, Jenkins said, is “a dream come true.” He praised President

Spencer’s leadership and legacy; spoke of the value of his own liberal arts education; and shared his admiration for Bates and the Bates graduates he has encountered as a professor at Ohio State and at Minnesota Law. Those Bates alumni, he said, are smart, no doubt. But they also possess “intelligence coupled with a capacity to think expansively, to creatively imagine new ways of solving old problems, to engage in the world with passion, humility, and empathy, and with a genuine commitment to leadership and service to better the world.”

As dean of the Minnesota Law School, Jenkins is credited with leading the work to eliminate a budget deficit; deepening the school’s approach to diversity, equity, and inclusion; and expanding and improving the demographic and academic profiles of its admitted students, with its most recent entering class achieving the highest academic credentials in the school’s 134-year history.

“Garry has been an invaluable partner, and I have leaned on his innovation, creativity, and collaborative leadership,” said Joan T. A. Gabel, president of the University of Minnesota.

Jenkins led Minnesota Law to a record-setting fundraising campaign that ultimately raised more than $106 million, surpassing its $80 million goal.

He also continued to teach. In 2020, he co-taught a course titled “George Floyd’s Minneapolis: Past, Present, and Moving Forward,” which examined the implications of the murder of Minneapolis resident George Floyd, by police, through experts on racial inequity in the criminal legal system, policing reform, economic inequality, and the school-to-prison pipeline.

At each step of his career, leadership has been a part of Jenkins’ life. At Harvard Law School, where he earned a J.D., he was editor-in-chief of the Harvard Civil Rights–Civil Liberties Law Review. (He also earned a master’s in public policy at the Harvard Kennedy School). A 1992 graduate of Haverford College, he joined the college’s Board of Managers in 2009 and became its vice chair in 2015.

At Ohio State’s Moritz College of Law, where he was both professor of law and associate dean for academic affairs, he co-founded and directed the school’s innovative Program on Law and Leadership, considered one of the first programs at a U.S. law school to teach law students skills and aspects of leadership, such as group dynamics and how to move issues forward.

According to Donald Tobin, the co-founder of that Ohio State program, one of Jenkins’ key leadership traits is listening. “He can’t be out-listened,” Tobin says. “He makes sure that everyone is heard and that he has thought through problems before acting. He works toward

About Garry Jenkins

On Feb. 27, Garry W. Jenkins was unanimously elected to be Bates’ next president by the Board of Trustees, effective July 1. He will be the college’s ninth president and first Black president.

Education

• B.A., Haverford College, political science

• M.P.P., Harvard Kennedy School

• J.D., Harvard Law School, editor-in-chief of the Harvard Civil Rights–Civil Liberties Law Review

CAREER

• 2016 to 2023: Dean and William S. Pattee Professor of Law, University of Minnesota Law School

• 2004 to 2016: Law professor, The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law, including eight years as associate dean for academic affairs

• Also: Chief operating officer and general counsel, Goldman Sachs Foundation; attorney, Simpson Thacher & Bartlett; law clerk, U.S. Court of Appeals, 3rd Circuit, Pittsburgh consensus, and once he acts he is confident and clear in the direction that needs to be taken.”

Tobin, who is now a professor of law and former dean at the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law, compared Jenkins’ leadership style to that of the late U.S. Vice President Walter Mondale, perhaps the most famous alumnus of Minnesota Law, who recognized that “as a leader,

BOARDS & SERVICE

• 2009 to 2023: Haverford’s Board of Managers, vice chair since 2015

• Also: Association of American Law Schools, National Women’s Law Center, Equal Justice Works

RESEARCH FOCUS

Law and philanthropy, corporate social responsibility, leadership studies, corporate governance

RECENT SCHOLARSHIP

• Chapter in Beyond Imagination?

The January 6 Insurrection (2022)

• Chapter in Building an Antiracist Law School, Legal Academy, and Legal Profession (forthcoming)

AWARDS

• Minnesota Lawyer’s Diversity and Inclusion Award

• Fellow, American Bar Association

• Elected member, American Law Institute

• Lawyers of Color Power List it’s really not all about you, it’s about the people who have put their trust in you. It’s about the institution that has given you the privilege of leading it and of making sure it achieves its goals. Garry is that type of leader — he has embraced institutions that he is a part of and worked to make them better.”

Jenkins was raised in northern New Jersey, his mother a career high school teacher and

Bottom

Bottom his father a computer programmer who taught part time at a local community college.

“My parents were both the first in their families to graduate from college,” he told the Bates crowd in March. “From them I developed a strong belief in higher education and ultimately a passion for the ways that it ignites human potential.”

Of all his life experiences, whether as a student or in law, business, or philanthropy, “it’s my own residential, small liberal arts college education and experience that was transformative,” he said. He described his education at Haverford, where he majored in political science and was named a Charles A. Dana Scholar — the same Dana program that has been at Bates since the 1960s — in phrases familiar to generations of Bates alumni: the academic rigor, the joy of learning and discovery, and relationships with staff “who mentored me and helped me believe that I belonged.”

So it’s no wonder Bates appealed so strongly. “Everything about Bates and its culture resonates with me,” he said in the initial announcement of his selection as president. “Even among the nation’s very best liberal arts colleges, Bates stands out.”

Over the years, and especially in his work on Haverford’s Board of Managers, he’s had a strong awareness of Bates.

“I’ve kept an eye on liberal arts colleges and I’ve watched with admiration Bates’ great strides” under Spencer’s leadership. “It will be an honor and a privilege to follow her. It’s an amazing legacy.”

Another Bates vibe that resonated with Jenkins is the college’s history: “open from the beginning to all people, not just the white men who were the traditional college students at the time of Bates’ founding in 1855,” he said. “Accordingly, not a place just waking up to newly discovered diversity, equity, and inclusion, like some.”

Yet, he added, Bates is selfaware that it is “not a perfect place — nor a place resting on its laurels. Rather, Bates seems to me a place that’s fully aware that there’s still more work to be done. In fact, plenty of work.

“But without struggle, without work, there is no progress. And I see that work happening. It’s happening here, and I want to be a part of pushing it forward — by all of us working together.” n