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Few individuals have helped shape the arc of recent Skidmore history as powerfully as Trustee Emerita Joan Layng Dayton ’63, known to the College community as “Joanie.” Her continuous leadership—starting as a trustee in 1986, then as chair of the College’s Journey Campaign from 1993 to 1998, chair of the Presidential Search Committee in 1997–98, and chair of the College’s Board of Trustees from 1998 to 2002—helped guide Skidmore along its upward trajectory to become the outstanding liberal arts institution it is today. Key to its remarkable growth was the creation of the Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery, an interdisciplinary hub that would elevate Skidmore to national prominence in the academic and art worlds, which Joanie was instrumental in bringing to life. Together with her husband, Bob, she established the museum’s Dayton Director Chair to ensure its continued growth and programmatic rigor. As chair of the Tang’s National Advisory Council, she is still working to keep the museum at the forefront of pedagogical innovation in the liberal arts. Along the way, she has logged countless hours as a volunteer, collected many memories and accolades, and earned the enduring gratitude of the Skidmore community. She’ll tell you there’s a thread that runs through her personal Skidmore journey, one that connects her student days to the decades of intense volunteerism on behalf of her alma mater. “There is one word that keeps surfacing: ‘passion.’”

The art major recalls being taught by faculty members who were passionate about their subjects and their students. Art professor and jewelry designer Earl Pardon’s passion, beyond his own creations, was making his students see and appreciate the beauty of a perfect shape or a perfect seam in sterling

silver, and just maybe inspiring them to create one themselves. Working in studio art courses was “challenging and energizing.” She observes that Pardon would give “rare but meaningful praise” and remembers vividly returning from lunch one afternoon to fnd her enamel work being demonstrated as an example of how not to approach the task. She credits art professor Arthur Anderson for teaching her how to understand a painting, and art history professor James Kettlewell for instilling an appreciation of that discipline. These experiences gave Joanie an aesthetic eye that would serve her well professionally. She went on to run a gallery featuring fne crafts at Harold Inc., a women’s specialty store, retiring in 1990 as gallery director and vice president.

As she built her career, Joanie’s devotion to Skidmore never diminished. She signed on as president of the Alumni Club of Minneapolis in the mid-1970s and worked as a Wide Horizons Campaign volunteer in the 1980s. She joined Skidmore’s Board of Trustees in 1986, making her mark as a consummate leader with business savvy, heart, and boundless energy. For her efforts, she received an Alumni Association Outstanding Service Award in 1993. That year, she stepped into the role of chair of the $86.5 million comprehensive campaign, The Skidmore Journey: A Campaign for Our Second Century, beginning a fve-year marathon of fundraising that would test her mettle and change Skidmore forever. Joanie traveled the country with then-President David Porter and Skidmore’s a cappella singing group the Bandersnatchers, “spreading the College’s message far and wide.” The experience is among her fondest memories. On the occasion of the Dayton family’s induction into the College’s Parnassus Society in 1998, it was proclaimed, “No one logged more