Dr. Nathan O. Hatch was provost of the University of Notre Dame when he was selected as Wake Forest's 13th president in 2005.
His first two years were characterized by an intense period of getting to know Wake Forest: its faculty, students and alumni, which helped to frame a set of impressions, as well as identify both opportunities and challenges. He has initiated a comprehensive strategic planning process to guide Wake Forest's future. The planning process, which was completed this 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. We have a rare opportunity to integrate an undergraduate liberal arts tradition with the vitality of a research university"
Most recently, a comprehensive master planning process has been initiated.
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, Dr. Hatch 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, have three children: Gregg, a 1997 graduate of Notre Dame, is a hospital administrator in Seattle, Washington; David, a 2000 Notre Dame graduate, received an MBA degree from Duke University in 2007 and is working in Charlotte, NC; and Beth is a 2007 graduate of Notre Dame. The Hatches also have two grandchildren.
Dr. Hatch 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.
From 2000 to 2006, he served on the National Council on the Humanities, the advisory board for the National Endowment for the Humanities. He currently is on the board of directors of the American Council on Education and is chair of the NCAA Committee on Athletics Certification. He is also a member of the Business Higher Education Forum and a trustee of the Fuller Theological Seminary.
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. |
