Bates College trustees elected A. Clayton Spencer to be the eighth president in the school's 156-year history. Currently vice president for policy at Harvard, Spencer assumes the Bates post on July 1, 2012. She succeeds Nancy Cable, who has been interim president since July 1, 2011, when Elaine Hansen stepped down after nine years to lead the Center for Talented Youth at The Johns Hopkins University. Spencer served under four Harvard presidents and played key roles in the Harvard-Radcliffe merger, the creation of a summer program for local high school students and the expansion of need-based tuition support under the Harvard Financial Aid Initiative.

####

Up the road a piece, University of Maine System Chancellor Richard L. Pattenaude appointed Ryan Low as executive director of governmental & external affairs for the system, succeeding John Lisnik, who is retiring after 21 years. Besides government relations, Low will oversee the system’s public and media relations efforts. He has been vice president of administration and CFO at UMaine Farmington since July 2010 and served as a member of Gov. Paul LePage’s Streamlining Commission. Prior to that, he was commissioner of the Department of Administrative and Financial Services in the Baldacci administration.