Honorary Degree Recipient

A leading spokesperson for American higher education, David Ward is the former President of the American Council on Education (ACE), having served from 2001 to 2008.

Under his leadership, the American Council as the major coordinating agent for higher education, maintained and strengthened its efforts to expand equity and diversity, internationalization, lifelong learning, and institutional effectiveness. As president of ACE, he was appointed to the Council of the United Nations University and to the Commission on the Future of Higher Education, convened by Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings.

Ward is also the former provost and Chancellor of the University of Wisconsin at Madison, where he was also Andrew H. Clark Professor of Geography. A recognized authority in historical urban geography, he has pioneered research on English and American cities during their rapid growth of the 19th and early 20th centuries and is the author of several books in this area, including "Poverty, Ethnicity, and the American City: Changing Conceptions of the Slum and the Ghetto, 1840-1920".

Ward is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, has served as president of the Association of American Geographers, and has been a visiting professor at University College London, Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Australian National University, Canberra as well as his alma mater, the University of Leeds.

Throughout his career as a university leader, he has worked with many of the nation’s higher education associations, including serving as chair of the Government Relations and Council the National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges (1998-2000) and on the Committee on Undergraduate Education of the Association of American Universities (1996-2000); the Science Coalition (1996-2000); the Kellogg Commission on the Future of State and Land-Grant Universities (1996-2000); and chaired the board of UCAID (University Consortium for Advancement Internet Development).

Ward currently resides in Washington D.C. where he consults, writes and lectures on issues in higher education. For his commitment to higher education, he will receive the Doctor of Humane Letters degree.