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The Rev. Dr. Christopher Thomforde to be inaugurated as St. Olaf Colleges 10th president

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March 9, 2001

NORTHFIELD, Minn. ? The Rev. Dr. Christopher Meredith Thomforde will be inaugurated as St. Olaf College?s 10th president on Sunday, April 29, in a colorful academic ceremony that will highlight a gala three-day celebration.

The inauguration will be in Skoglund Center Auditorium at 2:30 p.m. April 29, with Librarian of Congress James Billington, a personal friend of Thomforde?s, delivering the main address. The three-day Inauguration Weekend will start with a president?s ball and a gala fireworks display Friday, April 27, and will continue on Saturday, April 28, with an international dance festival, a faculty recital and senior art show opening. Inauguration Day also will include a tree-planting ceremony, a worship service, a reception and an orchestra concert, in addition to the formal inauguration ceremony.

Thomforde graduated from Princeton in 1969 with a bachelor?s degree in medieval and Russian history. He earned a master?s of divinity degree from Yale University Divinity School (with concentrations in biblical studies, church history and philosophy), and he completed a doctor of ministry degree at Princeton Theological Seminary.

He was named president of the 125-year-old St. Olaf College last September following an extensive national search. The college, an institution of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), is nationally recognized for its quality liberal arts curriculum and international studies programs.

He brings to St. Olaf College significant experience in higher education. From 1996 until this year he was president of Bethany College, another ELCA college, in Lindsborg, Kan. Before that he served for 10 years as chaplain of Susquehanna University in Selinsgrove, Penn. He also has served as a parish pastor and taught Western Languages and Medieval European History at Tunghai University in Taiwan.

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Born in Cleveland, Ohio, Thomforde grew up on Long Island, N.Y., and graduated from Long Island Lutheran High School. He is married to Christine Stone Thomforde, a registered nurse and accomplished cellist. They have three grown children.

Billington is one of Thomforde?s former professors at Princeton University. As librarian of Congress, he oversees the world?s largest repository of knowledge ? more than 28 million printed items and 119 million items in all formats. In 1987 he became librarian of Congress, a lifetime appointment, following in the footsteps of poet and writer Archibald MacLeish and author and historian Daniel Boorstin.

Billington is a 1950 Princeton graduate who attended Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar. After teaching history at Harvard and Princeton, he went to Washington, D.C., first as director of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and then as librarian of Congress.

St. Olaf College prepares students to become responsible citizens of the world, fostering development of mind, body and spirit. A four-year, coeducational liberal arts college of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), St. Olaf has a student enrollment of 2,950 and a full-time faculty complement of approximately 300. It is one of Money Guide?s top 100 "elite values in college education today," and it leads the nation?s colleges in percentage of students who study abroad.

Contact Michael Cooper at 507-786-3315 or cooperm@stolaf.edu.