Roger Howell, 53, Ex-President of Bowdoin
Published: September 29, 1989
Roger Howell Jr., president emeritus of Bowdoin College and a professor of the humanities there, died of heart failure Wednesday at the Maine Medical Center in Portland, Me. He was 53 years old and lived in Brunswick, Me.
Mr. Howell became Bowdoin's 10th president in 1969 at the age of 32. In the nine years of his presidency Bowdoin admitted women for the first time, expanded its enrollment to 1,350 from 950 and established the first African-American center in Maine.
Mr. Howell continued to teach while president. In 1978 he resigned the presidency to return to full-time teaching and research. At his death he was the William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of Humanities.
Mr. Howell, a native of Baltimore, was a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Bowdoin and was a Rhodes Scholar. He received bachelor's, master's and doctoral degrees from St. John's College at Oxford.
He joined the Bowdoin faculty in 1964, became chairman of the history department in 1967 and was acting dean in 1968.
He is survived by a daughter, Tracy, of Portland; a son, Christopher, of Berkeley, Calif., and three sisters, Louise Rohver of Brunswick, Katharine Habig of Chebeague Island, Me., and Anne Tucker of Bermuda.