BRYN MAWR COMMUNITY MOURNS THE LOSS
OF JULIE PAINTER, FORMER REGISTRAR

Julie Painter '59, who retired last year after 40 years of service to Bryn Mawr College, died at her home on Monday, June 7, after a long struggle with cancer. She had served as the College's registrar for more than 30 years. She was 66 years old.

"Those of us who have worked closely with her will remember warmly her quick and acerbic wit, and her dedication to the ideals and academic standards of Bryn Mawr," said President Nancy J. Vickers.

After a brief career in the New York business world, Painter returned to her alma mater to work in the Office of Admissions and Financial Aid in 1962. She became the college recorder in 1972 and continued to hold that position when the title was changed to registrar. Shortly after the founding of the Bryn Mawr College Staff Association in 1974, Painter was elected to its first executive board as the association's vice president; she served as its president in 1981-82.

Painter oversaw the implementation of the first computerized registration system at Bryn Mawr and saw the College through several conversions to new systems.

"I learned a tremendous amount from her," said Kirsten O'Beirne, who succeeded Painter as registrar after working with her for 15 years. "I loved working with her. She had a huge respect for the College and always tried to do what she thought was best for it."

Painter loved word games, detective stories and history, said Associate Provost Suzanne Spain, and she was "serious about travel. She traveled to a lot of exotic locales, and she always researched the history and culture of her travel destinations thoroughly beforehand. She collected maps and resisted the urge to collect teddy bears — but she had some," said Spain.

"Julie was delightful to have at your table as a guest," Spain said. "She told good stories and she was always the person with the smart, amusing, incisive observation. She was devoted to her nieces and nephews and was always thinking about presents for them."

Painter was also an intrepid outdoorswoman, recalled her Bryn Mawr classmate Sally Mallory, who is a laboratory research assistant at Bryn Mawr and a lecturer in chemistry at the University of Pennsylvania. In 1970 Painter was among a group of Bryn Mawr faculty members and administrators who hiked to the bottom of the Grand Canyon and rafted the Colorado River to Lake Meade. The trip was organized by Mallory and her husband, W. Alton Jones Professor of Chemistry Frank Mallory.

Shortly afterward, Painter was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, but she continued to venture into the great outdoors, Mallory said, accompanying Bryn Mawr groups on a whitewater rafting trip to the Salmon Fork River in Idaho and a hike in the Grand Tetons in Wyoming.

"She has been fighting three kinds of cancer for more than 20 years," Mallory said, "but until recently, there was just about nothing she wouldn't tackle. She was almost always in good spirits. She drew a lot of strength from her sisters and a very close group of friends at Bryn Mawr. Julie was a special person, and there was plenty of love in her life."

Painter is survived by her sisters, Prudence, Gail and Ann, who can be reached for the next two weeks at Julie's address, 601 W. Montgomery Avenue, Bryn Mawr, PA 19010.

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