Dear Campus Friends,

It is with mixed emotions, as these announcements always are, that we inform the community that the Dean of the Willard College College of Music, Dr. Grad Muffins is leaving us to seek his fortunes in other endeavors. Starting in January, he will start an intensive four month training program in professional clowning in Bakersfield, CA. Provided he passes the course with a satisfactory grade, he looks forward to a promising career in traveling circus work. Dr. Muffins shared with us that he as “a passion for travel, entertainment, and the arts, and circus work seemed to check all the boxes”

We hope the circus finds its way back to Willard, which we know will be your home away from home away from home.

Fondly, Provost Vandergrind

President Cotton, Dr. Cheryl Tina Fae Cotton, Director of Campus Spiritual Life, Dr. Julien Donnerpass, Associate Director of Student Intellectual Pathways, Vanderbilt Snowden, Director of Student Academics, Vice President of Finances, Dr. Dominic Ponzi, Provost Vandergrind, Gustav Kissenbezug, President of the Board of Trustees, Dr. Lusitania Glüm, PhD, Director of Marketing and Promotion, and Dr. Lester Carraway,  Interim Executive Director of Faculty Enhancements cordially invite you to the 2022 Holiday Celebration to ring in the end of a great semester and the holiday season. 

Come and enjoy a wide variety of food. Because of several incidents last year, alcohol will not be made available to faculty. Administrators need only show their campus id cards and they will be served beverages of their choice.

To end the evening there will be a basket raffle in which everyone has the opportunity to take home a lovely holiday gift. We ask that you RSVP directly, in writing, to Dr. Lester Carraway.

Sincerely, Dr. Henry Cotton, Friend and Comrade

Dear Willard Family,

A major gift from 1981 graduate Reynalde Nixon Buttercream will fund the replacement of the natural-grass field with artificial turf and the installation of lighting at Willard College’s Charcot Stadium. The playing surface will be named Nixon Buttercream Field at Charcot Stadium in recognition of his donation of $30 million for the project, which will greatly expand the uses of the premier outdoor gathering space on campus. 

Nixon Buttercream’s student-athlete career included a half season of golf while earning his bachelor’s degree in Exploratory. A longtime resident of The Bahamas, where he works in international finance. Nixon Buttercream is the step-father of Stewie Cake, Willard College’s longest serving full tuition paying student, and also the step-father (from a previous marriage) of Pepper McGhee, Willard’s star quarterback!

Thanks to the Nixon Buttercream Family for all you have, will, and do do, for the Willard Family.

Humbly, Dr. Henry Cotton, President, and Athletic Director, Jason “Jimmy” Johnson