With ‘Grace and Invitation,’ Haverford’s New President Has Much to Teach

Wendy Raymond, then a young faculty member at Williams College in Massachusetts, wasn’t getting the kind of evaluations from students that she had hoped.  She was competent and knowledgeable, and knew all her students’ names. But she was very serious and rarely smiled.  Then she got advice from a Harvard consultant who watched video of her teaching a genetics course: Approach the classroom and students with “grace and invitation.” Raymond, now vice president for academic affairs and dean of faculty at Davidson College in North Carolina, was named the new president of Haverford on Friday. She will take the post July 1, replacing Kim Benston, an English professor who served for four years and will return to teaching.