TUSCULUM COLLEGE
PUBLIC RELATIONS

CONTACT: CAMERON JUDD
423.636.7304
e-mail: cjudd@tusculum.edu

Tusculum College to inaugurate 26th President, Dr. Dolphus Henry, on Friday
Dr. Dolphus E. Henry will be inaugurated as the 26th president of historic Tusculum College on Friday in ceremonies beginning at 2 p.m. in the Alpine Arena, located on the campus in the Niswonger Commons building.
The public is invited to attend both the ceremony and a reception that will be held for Dr. Henry and his wife, Judith, immediately afterward. The reception will be held in the Chalmers Conference Center, which also is a part of the Niswonger Commons.
Presenting the new president and performing the investiture will be Stanley R. Welty, Jr., chairman of the Tusculum College Board of Trustees.
Delivering an inaugural address will be Dr. William H. Turner, a consultant in higher education and a long-time friend and associate of Dr. Henry. The inaugural response, delivered by Dr. Henry, will follow Dr. Turner’s address.
Organist Jim Winfree, bagpiper Jon Shell, and the combined choirs of Tusculum College and First Presbyterian Church of Greeneville will provide music for the ceremonies.
Visiting delegates who will march in the processional include representatives of other colleges and universities, of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), with which Tusculum College is associated; former presidents of the college, and representatives of educational associations.
Others who will take part in the processional are officers of the Tusculum College Student Government Association (SGA), members of the college’s faculty and staff, the president’s cabinet, members of the board of trustees, as well as Dr. Henry himself and others who will make up the platform party.
The invocation will be delivered by Dr. Stephen R. Weisz, campus chaplain and associate professor of religious studies. Later in the ceremony, another prayer will be delivered by the Rev. Angus R. Shaw III, pastor emeritus of First Presbyterian Church of Johnson City. The benediction will be given by the Rev. J. Wiley Prugh, retired executive presbyter of the Holston Presbytery of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).
The welcome will be given by Dr. Suzanne Hine, vice president and dean for Tusculum’s Graduate and Professional Studies division.
Representatives of various college constituencies will bring brief greetings to the president. Dr. Donal J. Sexton Jr., professor of history and faculty moderator, will bring greetings on behalf of the faculty, while Joanna White, executive accountant and Tusculum’s longest-term staff member, will bring greetings from the staff. White has been on the college staff for 42 years.
Carmen D. Brown, president of the SGA, will speak on behalf of students, while Tusculum College Alumni Association President Margaret Gaut will greet the president as a representative of the college’s alumni.
The Rev. Daniel M. Donaldson, pastor of First Presbyterian Church of Greeneville, will greet Dr. Henry on behalf of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). Greeneville’s First Presbyterian Church sprang from the same historical roots as Tusculum College and is also the home church of the Henrys.
R. Stan Puckett, president of Greene County Bank, will bring a welcome from the community to the new president.
After remarks and the investiture delivered by Welty, Turner will be introduced by Elizabeth Heiser, vice president for enrollment management at Capital University, an institution with which Dr. Henry was once affiliated.
After the inaugural address by Turner and Dr. Henry’s response, the recessional will take place and the ceremony will conclude. All attending will be invited to join the Henrys in the reception location elsewhere in the Niswonger Commons.
Dr. Henry, a native of Radford, Va., was appointed Tusculum College’s president by a unanimous vote of the college’s board of trustees in March of 2000, and took office on June 1. He came to the college from Macon, Ga., where he had served as vice president for enrollment management at Mercer University.
He brought to Tusculum nearly three decades of experience in higher education, with a strong emphasis on enrollment and strategic planning.
-TC-

#