Introduction of Jane McAuliffe by Barbara Mather '65

Our next guest speaker was inaugurated herself not long ago. Dr. Jane McAuliffe became the eighth president of Bryn Mawr College on July 1, 2008.

It is particularly fitting that Jane is speaking at Rebecca's inauguration today, not only because she represents Bryn Mawr and the Trico relationship but also because she and Rebecca have been friends and colleagues for many years. They both taught together in the Candler School of Theology and the Graduate Department of Religion at Emory University in the 1980s. They also received their first administrative appointments together while at Emory.

Beyond their shared history, Jane and Rebecca also share a deep commitment to the liberal arts, to maintaining the highest standards of academic excellence, and to educating students to become engaged citizens of the world.

Before assuming the presidency at Bryn Mawr, Dr. McAuliffe was dean of the college of arts and sciences at Georgetown University and professor in the departments of history and Arabic and Islamic studies there. She has also served as chair of the department for the study of religion and professor of Islamic studies at the University of Toronto.

Dr. McAuliffe is an internationally respected scholar of Islamic studies. Her numerous publications have focused primarily on the Qur'an and its interpretation, on early Islamic history, and on the multiple relations between Islam and Christianity. She has written or edited 10 books and recently completed the six-volume Encyclopaedia of the Qur'an, the first such reference work in Western languages.

She received a B.A. in philosophy and classics from Trinity College and an M.A. in religious studies, and Ph.D. in Islamic studies from the University of Toronto.

Dr. McAuliffe's work has been supported by prestigious fellowships, including those from the National Endowment for the Humanities as well as the Mellon, Rockefeller, and Guggenheim foundations. In 2007, she was elected to the American Philosophical Society and, in 2009, to the Council on Foreign Relations.

Please help me welcome our distinguished friend and neighbor and Rebecca's long-time friend and colleague, Dr. Jane McAuliffe.