Pamela Brooks Gann was inaugurated last Saturday at Bridges Auditorium in one of a series of events that marked her entrance as Claremont McKenna’s fourth president. Gann, CMC’s first female president, became president on July 1, 1999, after an eleven-month search to replace Jack Stark, CMC’s president for 19 years.

Gann comes to California from her home state of North Carolina, where she has spent the past eleven years as dean of Duke University School of Law. In her time there, Gann became internationally known for her expertise in fields of law related to taxation and international trade and business law. She has published on a variety of topics, and has co-authored a casebook, Corporate Taxation and Partnership Taxation.

New CMC President Pamela Gann

Gann’s accomplishments are widespread. She is a member of a number of different councils and associations, including the Council of Foreign Relations, where she advised presidents and traveled extensively. She has been recognized locally as well, receiving the "Woman Lawyer of the Year" award from the North Carolina Association of Women Attorneys in 1988.

Before her professional success, Gann accomplished a great deal in her academic life. She was elected Phi Beta Kappa at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she graduated with a math major in 1970. She completed law school at Duke in 1973, where she was an editor of the Duke Law Journal and an elected member of the Order of the Coif.

After law school, Gann worked for private firms in Atlanta, Georgia and Charlotte, North Carolina. After two years in the private sector, she returned to Duke.

In her time as dean at Duke, Gann led the university to becoming one of the top law schools in the country, expanding its faculty and making innovative strides in the school’s use of information technology. Gann hopes to accomplish the same goals while at CMC.

In her inauguration speech, Gann discussed the unique role that liberal arts colleges such as CMC can play in "educating leaders for business, the professions, and politics and public affairs." Such an emphasis means the incorporation of both theoretical and practical instruction. "[The Founders] have chosen a path that combines the duality of educating liberally and culturally, along with both the theoretical and pragmatic."

In keeping with this tradition, Gann focuses on a few areas as being essential to the education that CMC seeks to provide. She seeks to ensure that future leaders are well educated in both the sciences and the humanities; she also views an understanding of information technology and a sense of civic responsibility as important qualities in CMC students.

Policies for the coming years at CMC will reflect these concerns. Improvement on involvement in our current "information society" is essential, she believes: "We must place as much importance on these areas as we place on reading, writing, communications, and critical thinking," Gann explained.

Gann further proclaims that, "It is simply unacceptable for any student at this college to profess a lack of interest in science, mathematics, and technology." She believes CMC must work on "Developing the best educational practices for favorable impact on student learning and development in [these areas]."

With regard to globalization, she argues that serious steps must be made in expanding teaching efforts on global issues. "We fall short of meeting the needs of our students and of our society for global leadership."

Finally, Gann cites civic education as "the basic responsibility of the earliest colleges of the Republic." Though many schools have lost sight of this goal, it must be considered by schools capable of addressing such a concern. "This original role of the early American colleges is still especially suited to the liberal arts college environment."

With respect to Claremont’s five-college system, Gann believes that there is a "unique consortium," with a broad "intellectual community provided to faculty and to students." According to CMC’s public relations office, "President Gann and the CMC community feel strongly that the consortium is one of the most important features of the school, and are committed to cooperating and building the strengths of this unique educational environment."