Meet the President
An Interview with James H. Mullen, Jr.

Even before Jim Mullen officially assumed the presidency of Allegheny College on August 1, he and his family seemed almost as familiar a part of the campus landscape as Bentley Hall. While the president's house on Jefferson Street was undergoing extensive repairs to its foundation in July, the Mullens spent their first two weeks on campus literally on campus: in an apartment in the North Village residential complex. It was an opportunity the Mullens relished: a chance to get to know the College from a different vantage point, as part of the close community of students and guests who live on campus for all or part of the summer.

Dr. Mullen and his family—wife Mari, daughter Franki, son James, and presidential pooch Sonsy—made the trip from Holyoke, Massachusetts, to Meadville in the family van, with just enough belongings to last them till the moving van was to arrive two weeks later—or maybe not quite enough. He admitted to one new colleague, who couldn't keep her eyes from wandering to Dr. Mullen's loafered but sockess feet, that it wasn't a fashion statement—he simply hadn't remembered to paack socks and there'd been no chance to shop yet.

By August 2, only the second day on the job—and a Saturday at that—the Mullens turned out in force (and, by this time, in socks) to serve as carhops at the Market House for a community fund-raiser that re-created Johnnie's Drive-In, a Meadville staple from the 1950s.

Continue reading the feature article, "Meet the President."