H. Kim Bottomly
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
January 30, 1946
Wayne Villemez
H. Kim Bottomly | |
|---|---|
| 13th President of Wellesley College | |
| In office August 1, 2007 – July 2016 | |
| Preceded by | Diana Chapman Walsh |
| Succeeded by | Paula A. Johnson |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Helen Kim Bottomly January 30, 1946 Helena, Montana, U.S. |
| Spouse(s) |
Wayne Villemez |
| Education | University of Washington (BS, PhD) |
| Website | Wellesley College |
Helen Kim Bottomly (born January 30, 1946) is an American immunologist and the former president of Wellesley College, serving from August 2007 to July 2016.[1] Bottomly was the first scientist to become a president at Wellesley College.[2] She has been a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences since 2009.[3] She chaired the board of directors of the Consortium on Financing Higher Education and was a member of the advisory council of the National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health.[4] In May 2018, she was appointed as the chair of the board of the trustees[5] for the Fulbright University Vietnam,[6] which she stepped down from in 2019.
Bottomly attended the University of Washington (Seattle), graduated in 1969[7] with a degree in zoology. She then attended the University of Washington School of Medicine, receiving her PhD in biological structure in 1975.[7] In 2008, Bottomly was named one of the University of Washington's 100 most remarkable alumni.[8] She later did postdoctoral work in immunology at the National Institutes of Health from 1976 to 1979.[9][10]
President of Wellesley College
In 2007 she was named and assumed the duties of the 13th president of Wellesley College. Innovations made during Bottomly's presidency include launching the acclaimed Madeleine Korbel Albright Institute for Global Affairs, partnering with leading institutions of higher education around the world to educate women leaders, and making Wellesley the first liberal arts college to launch the online platform EdX,[11] which had previously been used by Harvard University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Bottomly established a collaboration with nearby colleges, Olin College of Engineering and Babson College, and initiated a large-scale renovation and renewal of the college's historic buildings.[1] In a letter to The New York Times editor in September 2011, she defended the value of the same-sex education.[12] Following a feature in The New York Times Magazine in 2014, that was critical of Wellesley College's treatment of transgender students,[13] Bottomly formed a committee to study gender identity, a process that lead in 2015 to Wellesley College changing its admission policies to accept transgender women.[14][15]
Bottomly left her post at Wellesley in July 2016, after making the decision to step down. In a letter to the college community, she wrote:
There will never be an easy time to leave such a wonderful place, but this is the right time for me. With robust financial and intellectual resources in place, and with efforts to renew our celebrated campus well underway, the college is strongly positioned to move forward. I am confident that Wellesley will continue to build on this base to achieve all the goals and aspirations of this remarkable college.[1]
