Biography
Catharine Bond Hill
President and Professor of Economics
Catharine Bond Hill became the tenth president of Vassar College on July 1, 2006. Hill is a noted economist whose work focuses on higher education affordability and access, as well as on economic development and reform in Africa. For the previous seven years Hill was the provost of Williams College, with major financial and academic responsibilities, including her role as the college's chief financial officer.
At Williams, Hill oversaw the annual college budget and long-range financial planning, the Williams College Museum of Art, the Williams College Libraries and the offices of Admissions, Financial Aid and Information Technology. She was also a member of the Committee on Appointments and Promotions, which makes all reappointment and tenure decisions and allocates faculty positions.
Hill most recently co-authored with Gordon C. Winston, the Orrin Sage Professor of Economics at Williams, the studies "Access to the Most Selective Private Colleges by High-Ability, Low-Income Students: Are They Out There?" (forthcoming in College Access: Opportunity or Privilege?, College Board, fall 2006) and “Affordability: Family Incomes and Net Prices at Highly Selective Private Colleges and Universities” (Journal of Human Resources, fall 2005).
Hill has been selected for a number of scholarly awards, grants, and fellowships from organizations including the American Council of Learned Societies, Brookings Institution, National Science Foundation, and Social Science Research Council. The current work of Hill and her colleagues on the economics and affordability of higher education is primarily supported by a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
Hill originally joined the economics faculty at Williams in 1985, and eventually chaired the college's Economics Department, Center for Development Economics, and Committee on Priorities and Resources. In her earlier career she worked for the World Bank, and the Fiscal Analysis Division of the U.S. Congressional Budget Office.
In what she has called one of the most transformative experiences of her life, Hill and her family lived from 1994-1996 in the Republic of Zambia, where she was the fiscal/trade advisor and then chief-of-party for the Harvard Institute for International Development’s Project on Macroeconomic Reform. She has written widely from her experiences in Africa, including co-editing the books Promoting and Sustaining Economic Reform in Zambia (2004) and the widely-reviewed Public Expenditure in Africa (1996).
Hill graduated summa cum laude from Williams College, and also earned B.A. and M.A. degrees at Brasenose College, Oxford University, with first class honours in politics, philosophy and economics. She completed her Ph.D. in economics at Yale University.
Hill and her husband, Kent J. Kildahl, head of the Upper School at Riverdale Country School (Riverdale, New York), have three children.
Vassar College is a highly selective, coeducational, independent, residential liberal arts college founded in 1861.