NEW LONDON, Conn. – Charles E. Shain, the former president of Connecticut College, died Sunday in Maine from complications of Alzheimer’s disease. He was 87.

Shain served as president of the college from 1962 to 1974, and is the namesake of the campus library. He also was a trustee of The Day of New London from 1969 to 1990.

Many credited him for leading the college in a smooth transition from a women’s college to a co-ed institution in 1969 and establishing one of the first Chinese departments and Asian programs at a liberal arts college.

“He was the right leader at the right time,” said Mario Doro, the Lucy Marsh Haskell professor emeritus of government. “He was very successful at it. He was mindful of the feelings of the older faculty who were committed to the woman’s college but managed to present this transition in a way that was acceptable.”

Shain was born June 3, 1915 in Tamaqua, Pa. He graduated from Princeton University in 1936, and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa.

A Mahey Fellowship from Princeton enabled him to study for a year at King’s College in Cambridge, England. He also earned graduate degrees in American literature at Princeton, where he was a Woodrow Wilson Fellow and Scribner Fellow.

He taught at Princeton; the Los Alamos Ranch School in New Mexico, where the first atomic bomb was later created; Milton Academy in Milton, Mass.; and Carleton College in Northfield, Minn. He received honorary degrees from Princeton, Wesleyan University and Emerson College.

He was the author of several scholarly publications in the field of American literature. His biographical and critical examination of F. Scott Fitzgerald, published by the University of Minnesota in 1961, has been translated into many languages and is still in print. He co-edited with his wife two Maine anthologies, The Maine Reader and Growing Up in Maine, both published in 1991.

He served in World War II as a combat intelligence officer, attaining the rank of major in the Army Air Force. He was stationed in Guam and received the Asiatic Pacific Service medal, the WWII Victory medal and a Bronze Star.

He moved to Georgetown, Maine, in 1976, where he stayed active in the community, serving on the school committee and chairing the local Democratic Party. Shain was predeceased by his parents, his three siblings and his first wife, the former Josephine Hooker.

He is survived by his wife of 19 years, Samuella Etnier, his three nephews, a stepdaughter, two stepsons, six step-grandchildren and five step-great-grandchildren.

A memorial service will be held at 2 p.m. Saturday at the Robinhood Free Meeting House in Georgetown, Maine. Memorial donations can be made to the Charles Shain Library at Connecticut College or to another charity of the donor’s choice.