Kim Bottomly, ’69, ’75, remembers the UW as a “rewarding and inspiring” place for an undergraduate to do research. She admits, however, that her former roommate might have a different opinion.
“My independent project investigated how crabs find food,” Bottomly recalls. “Many of my experimental crabs had to live in the sink of my bathroom in the dormitory, a bathroom I shared with an aspiring lawyer. She probably wasn’t as excited about the results as I was.”
Now Bottomly is bringing that same passion for hands-on learning to Wellesley College, where she assumed the presidency on Aug. 1. She is the 13th president of the prestigious women’s liberal arts school, located outside of Boston. Bottomly had been on the faculty at Yale University since 1980, and was most recently the deputy provost for science, technology and faculty development. She is also a successful immunobiologist who initiated research into cellular changes related to allergies and asthma.
“Over the course of her distinguished scientific career, Kim has shown a deep commitment to the values that matter most to Wellesley—the education and empowerment of women, the pursuit of academic excellence, the intrinsic worth of creating and disseminating knowledge,” Dean of the College Andrew Shennan said in a press release.
Although she has enjoyed her 27 years at Yale, Bottomly regards the Wellesley presidency as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. She says that after nearly three decades as an active scientist she is ready to hang up her lab coat and step into administrator’s shoes. “Yale has been a terrific place to do science,” she says. “It is difficult to leave a place like this…. I decided that I would like to devote the last years of my career to making a different kind of contribution. I’ve added to our store of scholarly knowledge, and now I hope to make a contribution to the future of the scholarly enterprise.”
As a child, Bottomly enjoyed working on science projects in her basement. The Montana native received a bachelor’s in zoology in 1969 and, after taking a couple of years off to work, earned a doctorate in biological structure from the UW School of Medicine in 1975. After graduating, she did post-doctoral work in immunology at the National Institutes of Health before joining the faculty at Yale.
Wellesley’s student population (2,300) is roughly one-fifth the size of Yale’s—and one-fifteenth the size of the UW’s enrollment. However, Bottomly has first-hand knowledge that the UW continues to make students feel connected. Her daughter, Hannah Janeway, graduated from the UW in March. Freshman Interest Groups make the UW feel more like a small liberal arts college within a large research university, Bottomly says. Although Janeway’s choice of schools was an independent decision, Bottomly says she was both “supportive and delighted” that her daughter picked the UW.
Despite the fact that she’s moving simultaneously into a larger role and a smaller school, Bottomly says she is ready to take on the presidency. She credits the example set by Yale President Rick Levin with helping prepare her for her new role. At Wellesley, she says she hopes to build on its strengths, maintaining its high-quality mix of students and faculty.
“A provost is responsible for the academic side of the university and a president is responsible for everything,” Bottomly says. “This fact alone explains the challenges involved in being a president and the excitement I feel in taking on new challenges.”