William R. Cotter (college president)

William R. Cotter
18th President of Colby College
In office 1979–2000
Preceded by	Robert E. L. Strider
Succeeded by	William Drea Adams
Personal details
Alma mater	Harvard College, Harvard Law School

William R. Cotter was a lawyer and 18th President of Colby College from 1979–2000, the longest serving president of all time at the college.

Cotter was the second son of a stay-at-home mother and a director-of-industrial-relations father who worked at a Chevrolet plant, neither of whom had attended college. He graduated from Washington Irving High School in Tarrytown, N.Y. in 1954, magna cum laude from Harvard College in 1958, and cum laude from Harvard Law School in 1961.

Cotter worked first as a law Clerk to a Federal District Judge in the Southern District of New York, then as an assistant attorney general in Northern Nigeria under the MIT Fellows In Africa Program, and then as a law associate with Cahill Gordon & Reindel on Wall Street. Cotter served as one of the first White House Fellows during the Johnson Administration. After finishing the fellowship in 1966, he became the Representative of the Ford Foundation in Colombia and Venezuela, which had programs to support economic planning, modern agriculture, the teaching of science, adult education on television, family planning, and the reform of legal education (including an exchange program with Harvard Law School). He returned to New York in 1970 to coordinate the foundation's educational programs before becoming the president of the African-American Institute where he served for nine years. AAI provided graduate fellowships for African students to study at U.S. universities and held study tours and forums for African and U.S. leaders to exchange views. It also supported the education of leaders from the liberation groups in South Africa, Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) and the then Portuguese and Belgium colonies in Africa.

Cotter was the longest serving president at Colby, throughout his years also teaching Constitutional law in the Government Department. Under his leadership, the College increased its endowment from $23 million to 373 million (1979–2000), constructed or expanded more than 20 buildings, and added more than 30 endowed faculty chairs. He is well remembered for removing fraternities from campus; he is also prominently known for expanded efforts to increase diversity on campus in students and faculty. During his presidency the number of minority students increased from 64 (4 percent) in 1979 to 249 (14 percent) in 2000, and the number of minority tenure-track faculty members increased from four (3 percent) to 23 (16 percent). His time also saw record numbers of students participate in international study programs.

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