Clifton Daggett Gray

Clifton Daggett Gray was an American scholar, and academic administrator. He served as the third president of Bates College in Lewiston, Maine.
Gray is credited with the expansion of the Bates College debate team, the Brooks Quimby Debate Council, by having them compete internationally for the first time. During World War II, he established the V-12 Naval Training Unit on campus assuring the college of good students during wartime. By the time he retired in 1944, Gray had doubled student enrollment and tripled the faculty number. He also doubled the endowment, increasing it from 1 million to 2 million dollars.

Gray was born in 1875 in Massachusetts, graduating from Harvard University in 1897 and then receiving a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago. Gray then served as a Free Baptist pastor and editor of The Standard, a Baptist periodical.

Clifton Daggett Gray became Bates' third president in 1919, serving until 1944. Gray continued his predecessor's expansion of the academic side of Bates, but his tenure also saw significant changes in other aspects of college life. On-campus dancing was officially sanctioned, hazing was abolished, and student orientation and socializing rules were more formally established.

In 1920 Gray became president of Bates College, a school that was historically affiliated with the Free Will Baptists. As president, Gray greatly expanded the College's endowment and was active in the Bates debate program. He helped to organize the first intercontinental debate when Bates debated Oxford University in 1921. During World War II, Gray was instrumental in bringing a V-12 Navy unit to train officers at the College. Gray served as president of Bates until 1944, when he retired. Gray died on February 21, 1948, in Lewiston, Maine.

Bates College honored Gray by naming their main athletic gymnasium after him. The Gray Athletic Building (Gray Cage) at Bates is home to basketball games, and student and faculty activities.