Dr. Bonnie Jackson Clemens was appointed to the position of Secretary to the Board and Assistant to the Chief Executive Officer effective July 1, 2008. In that role, she provides executive management support and research assistance to the Board of Overseers and several Board Committees as well as executive management support to the Council of The Claremont Colleges. As Assistant to the Chief Executive Officer of CUC, she provides leadership and support roles for a wide range of special projects assigned by the CEO. Since January 2011, she has had administrative oversight for CUC Human Resources.
Dr. Clemens’ professional background and education span more than 35 years in higher education. Prior to her current appointment, she was Director of Libraries for The Claremont Colleges, a position she had held since 1990. During her tenure, she furthered the Libraries long-standing emphasis on applying new technologies and innovative strategies as complementary to traditional library information, research, and instructional services and collections. She also represented the Libraries at campus, regional, and national meetings and the Consortium on campus-wide committees, including the Information Technology Committee.
Dr. Clemens began her professional library career at Louisiana State University where she received her master’s degree. In 1976, she received an HEA Title II-B Fellowship for advanced study in Library Science at The Florida State University where she earned her Ph.D. In 1979, she was appointed personnel librarian at the University of Georgia Libraries; over a period of eleven years, she held a number of administrative positions at the University, including serving as Acting Director of Libraries for two years.
Active professionally, Dr. Clemens has published with an emphasis on library personnel matters, has spoken both nationally and regionally on library technology and library consortium development, and has served on a number of national and regional library committees and as a Delegate to the OCLC Users Council. During her tenure on the Executive Committee of the Statewide California Electronic Library Consortium, the organization transitioned from a primarily volunteer organization to a nonprofit public benefit corporation that has developed a national reputation for service to private academic libraries. Dr. Clemens has also served on a number of WASC visiting teams and on committees of the Mt. Baldy United Way.