Roger Howell, Jr.

Roger Howell, Jr.
10th President of Bowdoin College
In office 1969–1978
Preceded by	James S. Coles
Succeeded by	Willard F. Enteman
Personal details
Born	1936 Baltimore, Maryland
Died	September 27, 1989 (aged 53) Brunswick, Maine
Alma mater	Bowdoin College

Roger Howell, Jr. (1936 – September 27, 1989) was the tenth president of Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine, and the fourth to be an alumnus of the college.

Born in Baltimore, Maryland, Howell graduated summa cum laude with Highest Honors in History from Bowdoin College in 1958. Elected to Phi Beta Kappa in his junior year, he continued his education on a Rhodes Scholarship to St. John's College, Oxford, where he received a B.A., M.A., and D.Phil. One of the rare Americans to teach British history at Oxford, he was an instructor at Oxford's International Graduate School, as well as Johns Hopkins University, before returning to Bowdoin to teach history in 1964 and chairing its History Department in 1967.

When Howell became the college's tenth president in 1968 at age 32, he was one of the youngest university presidents in the nation. Under his nine-year presidency, Bowdoin became a co-ed institution (1971), expanded its enrollment from 950 students to 1,350, founded its computing center, established Maine's first African-American center, developed African-American studies and 12-college exchange programs, and invited students to participate on Governing Boards committees.

In 1970, Bowdoin became the first academic institution in America to eliminate SAT I and College Board Achievement Test requirements. This set a trend to follow for other institutions, including Bates College, Franklin & Marshall College, Hamilton College, Middlebury College, Mount Holyoke College, Pitzer College, the University of Texas at Austin, and Wheaton College, among others.

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