Boyer 2030 Commissioners

Barbara R. Snyder is president of the Association of American Universities. Prior to that, she served as president of Case Western Reserve University from 2007 to 2020, where she encouraged interdisciplinary excellence, catalyzed institutional collaboration, and reinvigorated alumni engagement and fundraising.

Barbara began her academic career as an assistant professor at Case Western Reserve’s School of Law, then joined the faculty of Moritz College of Law at The Ohio State University. After serving in several leadership positions at Moritz and within the central university, Barbara became The Ohio State University’s interim executive vice president and provost in 2003 before securing that position on a permanent basis the following year.

She graduated with a juris doctor degree from the University of Chicago School of Law, where she served as executive editor of the law review. She earned her bachelor’s degree from The Ohio State University.

Barbara is a director of KeyCorp and Progressive Corporation. She is an elected member of the American Law Institute. Previously, she has served as chair of the board of directors of the American Council on Education, chair of the board of directors at the Business-Higher Education Forum, vice chair of the board of trustees of Internet2, a member of the board of directors of the Greater Cleveland Partnership, a member of the board of directors of Jobs Ohio, a trustee of University Circle Inc., and a member of the Ohio Business Roundtable.

Peter McPherson is president emeritus of the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities (APLU), having retired in September 2022. Since becoming president in January 2006, McPherson helped cultivate a vibrant and collaborative public higher education community aimed at driving equitable student success; fostering research and innovation to meet societal needs, and deepening community and economic engagement to benefit all.

Before leading APLU, McPherson served as president of Michigan State University from 1993 to 2004. Before being named president of Michigan State University, McPherson was a Group Executive Vice President at Bank of America. During the Reagan administration, McPherson served as Deputy Secretary of the U.S. Department of the Treasury from 1987 to 1989. Before his work at the Treasury Department, McPherson served as Administrator of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) from 1981 to 1987. Prior to leading USAID, McPherson was the managing partner of the Washington office of the law firm Vorys, Sater, Seymour and Pease. He also served as Special Assistant to the President and Deputy Director of the Office of Presidential Personnel during the Ford administration.

McPherson has served as Chair of the Board of Directors at Dow Jones and Company, as Chair of the Board for Harvest Plus, and he was Co-founder and Chair of the Partnership to Cut Hunger and Poverty in Africa. McPherson is also the former Chair of Abraham Lincoln Study Abroad Commission. He was a Board of Trustees member for the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Foundation.

McPherson holds a bachelor’s degree from Michigan State University, an M.B.A. from Western Michigan University, and a J.D. from American University.

Michael M. Crow became the 16th president of Arizona State University in July 2002. Lauded as the ”#1 most innovative” school in the nation by U.S. News & World Report for eight straight years, ASU is a student-centric, technology-enabled university focused on global challenges.

The inaugural recipient of the American Council on Education Award for Institutional Transformation and one of TIME magazine’s “10 Best College Presidents” in 2010, Crow served as executive vice provost of Columbia University and professor of science and technology policy. He served as the founding director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, and in 1998, founded the Center for Science, Policy, and Outcomes (CSPO) in Washington, D.C, now the Consortium for Science, Policy, and Outcomes, based in both Phoenix and D.C.

Crow has been an advisor to the U.S. Departments of State, Commerce, and Energy, as well as defense and intelligence agencies. He serves as Chairman of the Board for In-Q-Tel. Crow is an elected fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the National Academy of Public Administration, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. A member of the U.S. Council on Competitiveness and the Council on Foreign Relations, he is also a two-term member of the National Advisory Council on Innovation and Entrepreneurship and has served on the U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security Academic Advisory Council. 

Crow is the author of books and articles analyzing knowledge enterprises, science and technology policy, and the design of higher education institutions and systems, including Designing the New American University (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2015) and The Fifth Wave: The Evolution of the American Research University (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2020). 

He received his Ph.D. in Public Administration (Science and Technology Policy) from Syracuse University.

Andrew Delbanco became President of The Teagle Foundation in 2018, and has served on its Board of Directors since 2009. He has taught at Columbia University since 1985, where he is the Alexander Hamilton Professor of American Studies. He earned his A.B., A.M., and Ph.D. degrees from Harvard University.

Delbanco’s book, The War Before the War: Fugitive Slaves and the Struggle for America’s Soul from the Revolution to the Civil War (Penguin Press, 2018), was named a New York Times notable book, awarded the Anisfield-Wolf prize for “books that have made important contributions to our understanding of racism and human diversity,” and the Mark Lynton History Prize, sponsored by the Columbia Journalism School and the Nieman Foundation at Harvard. His other books include College: What It Was, Is, and Should Be (Princeton University Press, 2012); and Melville: His World and Work (Knopf, 2005). He has won Columbia’s Lionel Trilling Award three times, for The War Before the War (2018), Melville (2005), and The Puritan Ordeal (1990).
Delbanco was elected president of the Society of American Historians for 2021-2022. National Endowment for the Humanities named Delbanco the 2022 Jefferson Lecturer in the Humanities. He has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the American Council of Learned Societies, and the National Endowment for the Humanities, and was a member of the inaugural class of fellows at the New York Public Library Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers. He is a trustee of the Library of America and served on the boards of the American Association of Colleges and Universities, the National Humanities Center, and the PEN American Center. He is an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Philosophical Society. In 2001, Time named him “America’s Best Social Critic.” In 2012, President Barack Obama presented him with the National Humanities Medal “for his writings on higher education and the place classic authors hold in history and contemporary life.”

Roger W. Ferguson Jr. is the Steven A. Tananbaum Distinguished Fellow for International Economics at the Council on Foreign Relations. He is also a contributor to CNBC and the Pembroke Visiting Professor of International Finance at the University of Cambridge's Judge Business School. Dr. Ferguson is the immediate past president and CEO of TIAA. Prior to joining TIAA, Dr. Ferguson was head of financial services for Swiss Re and chairman of Swiss Re America Holding Corporation. Dr. Ferguson is the former vice chairman of the board of governors of the U.S. Federal Reserve System. He began his career as an attorney at the New York City office of Davis Polk & Wardwell and was an associate and partner at McKinsey & Company.

Dr. Ferguson is a member of the Smithsonian Institution’s Board of Regents. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. He serves on the boards of Alphabet, Inc.; Corning, Inc.; General Mills, Inc.; and International Flavors & Fragrances, Inc. Dr. Ferguson is also active as an advisor and board member with various private fintech companies. He serves on the boards of the Conference Board, the Institute for Advanced Study, and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.

Dr. Ferguson holds a B.A., J.D., and a Ph.D. in economics, all from Harvard University.

Kathleen Fitzpatrick is Director of Digital Humanities and Professor of English at Michigan State University. Her work across her career has focused on building resilient, sustainable scholarly communities and transforming their processes of communication to foreground connection, conversation, and collaboration. She has published three books, Generous Thinking: A Radical Approach to Saving the University (Hopkins Press, 2019), Planned Obsolescence: Publishing, Technology, and the Future of the Academy (NYU Press, 2011), and The Anxiety of Obsolescence: The American Novel in the Age of Television (Vanderbilt Press, 2006). She is project director of Humanities Commons, an open-access, open-source network serving nearly 30,000 scholars and practitioners across the humanities and around the world.

Between 2011 and 2017, Fitzpatrick was Director of Scholarly Communication and then Associate Executive Director of the Modern Language Association, where she co-authored and oversaw the development of the eighth edition of the MLA Handbook. Prior to taking on that position, she was Professor of Media Studies at Pomona College, where she had been a member of the faculty since 1998. While at Pomona, she co-founded the digital scholarly network MediaCommons, where she led a number of experiments in open peer review and other innovations in scholarly publishing. She has served as president of the Association for Computers and the Humanities since 2020, and she currently serves as president of the board of directors of the Educopia Institute, and as a member of the board of directors of the Council on Library and Information Resources.

Kevin Kruger draws on more than 40 years of experience in higher education. Since 2012, he has served as president and CEO for NASPA – Student Affairs Administrators in Higher Education. Prior to his role as president, Dr. Kruger worked for 18 years as the associate executive director and served as the chief operating officer (COO) and chief financial officer (CFO) for NASPA. He has held a range of student affairs positions at Southern Methodist University and the University of Maryland.

As NASPA president, Dr. Kruger represents student affairs at a variety of national forums and is a frequent contributor to higher education news stories on the college student experience. Dr. Kruger has published and presented nationally and globally on trends in higher education, student success, degree-completion strategies for low-income/first-generation students, and change management and leadership in higher education.

Dr. Kruger received his M.A. and Ph.D. in Counseling and Personnel Services from the University of Maryland. He is the proud father of two children, one a recent college graduate and the other a college junior.

Gary S. May leads the most comprehensive campus in the University of California system, with four colleges and six professional schools. His vision as UC Davis’ seventh chancellor is to lead the university to new heights in academic excellence, inclusion, public service and upward mobility for students from all backgrounds.

Throughout his career, he has championed diversity and mentorship in both higher education and the workplace. He developed nationally recognized programs to attract, mentor and retain underrepresented groups in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and math. In 2015, President Barack Obama honored May with the Presidential Award for Excellence in STEM Mentoring. In 2021, he received the Lifetime Mentor Award from the American Association for the Advancement of Science and an honorary doctorate from the Georgia Institute of Technology.

An accomplished scholar and engineer, May came to UC Davis in 2017 after a three-decade career at the Georgia Institute of Technology. He was dean of the Institute’s College of Engineering — the largest and most diverse school of its kind in the nation. Prior to his appointment as dean, May was the Steve W. Chaddick Chair of Georgia Tech’s School of Electrical and Computer Engineering. He also served as the executive assistant to then-Georgia Tech President G. Wayne Clough.

May serves on the board of directors for Leidos and the advisory board for the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

A native of St. Louis, May is married to LeShelle R. May, a software engineer with CNN. They have two grown daughters, Simone and Jordan.

Sarah W. Newman is Director of Art & Education at metaLAB at Harvard, and Co-Founder of the Data Nutrition Project. Working at the intersection of research and art, her work explores the interrelations of complex systems and technology’s role in human experience. In addition to her art practice, she is also a facilitator and educator, and leads workshops with her methodology to use creative materials to address interdisciplinary research problems.

Newman holds a BA in Philosophy from Washington University in St. Louis and an MFA in Imaging Arts from the Rochester Institute of Technology. She has exhibited work in New York, San Francisco, Berlin, and London, and has held artist residencies in Germany, Sweden, and Italy. Newman is a 2017 AI Grant Fellow, a 2018 and 2020 Harvard Assembly Fellow, a 2019 Rockefeller AI Resident, the 2020-21 artist-in-residence at Northeastern University’s Center for Law, Innovation, and Creativity, and a 2021-22 grantee of the National Endowment for the Arts.

Her current work explores various dimensions of complex technological, ecological, and social systems, and uses interactive art as a means of critique and public engagement.

Lynn Pasquerella has served as President of the American Association of Colleges and Universities since July 2016. A philosopher whose career has combined teaching and scholarship with local and global engagement, she has continuously demonstrated a deep and abiding commitment to ensuring that all students have access to excellence in liberal education, regardless of their socioeconomic background.

Pasquerella is a graduate of Quinebaug Valley Community College, Mount Holyoke College, and Brown University. She joined the faculty of the Department of Philosophy at the University of Rhode Island in 1985, rising rapidly through the ranks to the positions of vice provost for research, vice provost for academic affairs, and dean of the graduate school. In 2008, she was named provost of the University of Hartford. In 2010, she was appointed the eighteenth president of Mount Holyoke College. Pasquerella’s presidency of Mount Holyoke was marked by a robust strategic planning process; outreach to local, regional, and international constituencies; and a commitment to a vibrant campus community.

Pasquerella has written extensively on medical ethics, metaphysics, public policy, and the philosophy of law. She is the immediate past president of the Phi Beta Kappa Society and a member of the boards of the Lingnan Foundation and the National Humanities Alliance. In addition, Pasquerella is host of Northeast Public Radio's The Academic Minute. She has received honorary doctorates from Elizabethtown College, Bishop’s University, the University of Hartford, the University of South Florida, and the University of Rhode Island.

Deborah A. Santiago is the Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Excelencia in Education, America's premier authority on efforts accelerating Latino student success in higher education. As an innovator, thought leader, and educational visionary, she has led research and advanced evidence-based practices and strategies for more than 20 years at national levels to improve educational opportunities and success to better SERVE Latino, and all, students.

She co-founded Excelencia in Education in 2004 to inform policy, compel action, and collaborate with those ready to accelerate student success with an unapologetic Latino lens. Among her many contributions, Santiago has addressed federal legislative issues in higher education at the Congressional Research Service and informed program and policy implementation at the U.S. Department of Education. She also improved awareness and education opportunities for Latinos with federal agencies as the Deputy Director of the White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for Hispanic Americans. Among Santiago’s community efforts, she has provided program design and implementation for dropout prevention and parental engagement for the ASPIRA Association and translated data for community engagement at the Los Angeles Alliance for Student Achievement.

Santiago has been referred to by media as a national expert on Latinos in higher education and her respected work has been cited in numerous publications, including The New York Times, Washington Post, The Economist, Forbes, and The Chronicle of Higher Education. She serves on the Board of Visitors for the University of Mary Washington, her Alma Mater, as well as the Advisory Board of TheDream.US.

Claude M. Steele is an American social psychologist and a Professor of Psychology at Stanford University. He is best known for his work on stereotype threat and its application to minority student academic performance. His earlier work dealt with research on the self (e.g., self-image, self-affirmation) as well as the role of self-regulation in addictive behaviors. In 2010, he released his book, Whistling Vivaldi and Other Clues to How Stereotypes Affect Us, summarizing years of research on stereotype threat and the underperformance of minority students in higher education.
He holds B.A. in Psychology from Hiram College, an M.A. in Social Psychology from The Ohio State University, and a Ph.D. in Social Psychology and Statistical Psychology from Ohio State University.
He is elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the National Academy of Sciences, the National Science Board, the National Academy of Education, and the American Philosophical Society. He currently serves as a trustee of the Russell Sage Foundation and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, and as a Fellow for both the American Institutes for Research and the American Academy of Political and Social Science.

Steele has served in several major academic leadership positions as the Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost at UC Berkeley, the I. James Quillen Dean for the School of Education at Stanford University, and as the 21st Provost of Columbia University. Past roles also include serving as the President of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, as the President of the Western Psychological Association, and as a member of the Board of Directors of the American Psychological Society.
Professor Steele holds Honorary Doctorates from Yale University, Northwestern University, University of Chicago, University of Michigan, DePaul University and Claremont Graduate University.

Holden Thorp became Editor-in-Chief of the Science family of journals in October 2019. He came to Science from Washington University, where he was provost from 2013 to 2019 and where he is Rita Levi-Montalcini Distinguished University Professor and holds appointments in both chemistry and medicine. He joined Washington University after spending three decades at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC), where he served as the 10th chancellor from 2008 through 2013.

A North Carolina native, Dr. Thorp started at UNC as an undergraduate student and earned a bachelor of science degree in chemistry with highest honors in 1986. He earned a doctorate in chemistry in 1989 at the California Institute of Technology, working with Harry B. Gray on inorganic photochemistry. He completed postdoctoral work at Yale University with Gary W. Brudvig, working on model compounds and reactions for the manganese cluster in the photosynthetic reaction center. He holds an honorary doctor of laws degree from North Carolina Wesleyan College and is a fellow of the National Academy of Inventors.

In his research career, he studied electron-transfer reactions of nucleic acids, developed technology for electronic DNA chips, and cofounded Viamet Pharmaceuticals, which developed oteseconazole, now held by Mycovia Pharmaceuticals and in phase 3 clinical trials. He is a venture partner at Hatteras Venture Partners, a consultant to Ancora, and is on the board of directors of the College Advising Corps and Artizan Biosciences.

Dr. Thorp is the coauthor, with Buck Goldstein, of two books on higher education: Engines of Innovation: The Entrepreneurial University in the Twenty-First Century and Our Higher Calling: Rebuilding the Partnership Between America and its Colleges and Universities, both from UNC Press.

Eric Waldo is Chief Engagement Officer for the U.S. Surgeon General. He served as Executive Director of Michelle Obama’s Reach Higher initiative and Chief Access & Equity Programs Officer at the Common App. Waldo worked to inspire every student in the U.S. to take charge of their future by completing a post-secondary education, whether at a professional training program, a community college, or a 2-year or 4-year college or university. His role cut across policy, advocacy, and community engagement to further the goal that the U.S. once again leads the world in terms of college graduates.

Before joining the White House, Waldo was Deputy Chief of Staff (DCOS) at the Department of Education (ED), where he helped lead and manage ED through President Obama’s historic investment of $100B in education funding via the Recovery Act. This work created important investments around system-level, cradle-to-career changes for states, districts, schools, and communities. Waldo also helped manage the Department of Defense (DOD) global K-12 school system as the Co-Chair for the Advisory Council for Dependents’ Education, which advises and oversees the DOD schools.

One of the first attorneys hired on the 2007-2008 Obama Campaign, Waldo served as Deputy Staff Counsel, providing legal guidance on a wide array of election protection and operational issues for the $750M Obama enterprise. After serving as an attorney on the Obama-Biden Presidential Transition Team, Waldo joined ED as Special Assistant to Sec. Duncan prior to becoming DCOS.

Waldo earned a J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School, an M.Ed. from Harvard University, and an A.B. from Brown University. He currently resides in Washington, D.C. with his wife, Katie.

Mary Wright is Associate Provost for Teaching and Learning, Executive Director of the Sheridan Center for Teaching and Learning, and a Professor of Practice in the Department of Sociology. She is also a former president (2017-18) of the Professional and Organizational Development (POD) Network in Higher Education, the U.S. professional association for educational development. Prior to arriving at Brown, she was Director of Assessment and an Associate Research Scientist at the University of Michigan's Center for Research on Learning and Teaching (CRLT).

Dr. Wright earned an A.B. in sociology from Princeton University, an M.A. and Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Michigan, and an M.A. in higher education administration from the Center for the Study of Higher and Postsecondary Education at U-M.

Her research interests include evaluation of teaching and learning innovations, measuring the impact of educational development services, graduate student professional development, and curricular assessment of student learning. Her book, Always at Odds?: Creating Alignment Between Faculty and Administrative Values, was published in 2008 by SUNY Press. She is also a co-author on the ACE-POD Center for Teaching and Learning Matrix (2017), which created operational standards for Centers for Teaching and Learning, as well as Defining What Matters, which established guidelines for Center for Teaching and Learning evaluation. Dr. Wright is a co-editor of the International Journal for Academic Development, the journal of the International Consortium for Educational Development, which seeks to enable academic developers in higher education across the world to exchange ideas about practice and research. She is currently working on a second book that explores the landscape of educational development in the United States; Centers for Teaching and Learning: The New Landscape in Higher Education, is forthcoming in 2023 from Johns Hopkins University Press.

Elizabeth Bergmann Loizeaux is Special Advisor to the Provost and past Associate Provost for Undergraduate Affairs and Professor of English at Boston University (2012-2019). She works nationally on issues in higher education with the Association for Undergraduate Education at Research Universities (UERU), having served as a board member and as President and Chair of the Board.

As Associate Provost for Undergraduate Affairs, Loizeaux provided leadership on a host of core academic efforts, working closely with Boston University’s 17 schools and colleges to promote collaboration and strengthen the undergraduate experience. She led the development of BU’s first university-wide general education program, the BU Hub, established the Advising Network, oversaw the evolution of Kilachand Honors College, and helped initiate BU’s educational technology strategy and enhance the Center for Teaching & Learning. Key to her efforts was expanding and supporting student access to all aspects of BU’s offerings across disciplines.

Prior to her arrival at BU, Dr. Loizeaux served as Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Professor of English in the College of Arts and Humanities at the University of Maryland, College Park. An internationally respected scholar, she writes about 20th century poetry and the visual arts, most recently on the press and embroidery workshop founded by the sisters of William Butler Yeats. Her books include Twentieth-Century Poetry and the Visual Arts (Cambridge University Press, 2008) and Reimagining Textuality: Textual Studies in the Late Age of Print, co edited with Neil Fraistat (Wisconsin, 2003). Her more than 25 years of classroom experience include overseas teaching in England, Ireland and Germany. A graduate of Mount Holyoke College, she received her MA and PhD in English from the University of Michigan.