Dr. Nathan O. Hatch is in his second year as president of Wake Forest University. A nationally respected historian, Dr. Hatch was provost of the University of Notre Dame when he was selected as Wake Forest's 13th president.
After spending his first year at Wake Forest meeting faculty, students and alumni, he is focusing this year on a comprehensive strategic planning process to guide Wake Forest's future. The planning process, which is expected to be completed next fall, encompasses all schools and departments on the Reynolda Campus.
"This is an exciting time for Wake Forest," he says. "Our new plan will build upon existing strengths and identify areas where we need to improve, through defining strategies, setting priorities, and developing tactics to reach our goals. I am more confident than ever that Wake Forest has the ability to continue to take a significant place within higher education."
Throughout his academic career, Dr. Hatch has been drawn to challenges that involve people and building organizations. "I am thoroughly an academic and have cherished administrative work not as different than teaching and scholarship but as an opportunity to build an organization in which academic life can flourish," he says.
"Although I had been at Notre Dame a long time, I had never been satisfied going around the same track too many times. I spent a considerable number of years in teaching and scholarship. Then I turned my attention to helping build a liberal arts college and then advancing graduate education and research. Finally, I oversaw the entire academic enterprise for nine years as provost. In each of these tasks, I had a set of defined challenges that I could throw myself into fulfilling. I wanted the organization to improve in noticeable ways and to think strategically and move from one point to another."
Since coming to Wake Forest, he has created a Presidential Trust for Faculty Excellence to support faculty professorships and research. Building a community of faculty and students and sustaining the "teacher-scholar" ideal must remain the University's highest priorities, he says.
Often described as affable, approachable and a lively conversationalist, Dr. Hatch has established a strong rapport with students. He made an early positive impression when he arrived at his student-sponsored Inaugural Ball on the back of a motorcycle driven by the Demon Deacon. He and his wife, Julie, a former public school teacher, recently oversaw the renovation of a garage at the President's House into a comfortable lounge/recreation area, where they plan to entertain student and faculty groups.
The Hatches have three children: Gregg, a 1997 graduate of Notre Dame, is a hospital administrator in South Bend, Indiana; David, a 2000 Notre Dame graduate, worked for a financial organization in Chicago for several years and is now in the MBA program at Duke University; and Beth, a senior at Notre Dame majoring in American Studies and theology. Their first grandchild, Lucia Jean, was born in 2005 to Gregg and his wife, Kathy.
Dr. Hatch, 60, grew up in Columbia, South Carolina, where his father was a Presbyterian minister. A graduate of Wheaton College in Illinois, he received his master's and doctoral degrees from Washington University in St. Louis and held post-doctoral fellowships at Harvard and Johns Hopkins universities. He joined the faculty at Notre Dame in 1975 and was named director of graduate programs in history in 1980.
Over the next twenty-five years, he amassed a strong record of directing undergraduate, graduate and professional programs at Notre Dame. He served as associate dean of the College of Arts and Letters from 1983 until 1988 and then acting dean for one year. He was appointed vice president for graduate studies and research in 1989. He was named provost, the university's second highest-ranking position, in 1996; a Presbyterian, he was the first Protestant to ever serve in that position at Notre Dame. He also held an appointment as the Andrew V. Tackes Professor of History.
He is regularly cited as one of the most influential scholars in the study of the history of religion in America. He received national acclaim for his 1989 book, "The Democratization of American Christianity," in which he examines how the rise of religious groups in the early 19th century helped shape American culture and foster democracy. The book was chosen in a survey of 2,000 historians and sociologists as one of the two most important books in the study of American religion. He is also the author or editor of seven other books on religion.
He currently serves on the board of trustees of Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California, and on the National Council on the Humanities, the advisory board for the National Endowment for the Humanities. Locally, he serves on the board of directors of Forsyth Futures, a community organization dedicated to improving the lives of Forsyth County residents.
Dr. Hatch was named president of Wake Forest in January 2005 and took office on July 1, 2005, succeeding Thomas K. Hearn Jr., who retired after 22 years as president. |
