President of Dartmouth College
Hanover, New Hampshire
Elected 1998 (President and Trustee)
A.B. University of Wisconsin
Ph.D. University of Wisconsin
A veteran academic administrator and noted historian, President James Wright has spent over 30 years in higher education and has held a series of leadership positions at Dartmouth during one of the most eventful eras in its history. He is the 16th president of Dartmouth College. Born Aug. 16, 1939, in Madison, Wisconsin, Wright received a bachelor's degree from Wisconsin State University - Platteville, and master's and doctoral degrees in history from the University of Wisconsin at Madison. He has been a member of the Dartmouth community since 1969, when he came to Hanover as an assistant professor of history. He became associate professor of history in 1974 and professor of history in 1980. He served as associate dean of the faculty at Dartmouth from 1981-85 and then as dean of the faculty from 1989-97; as acting president of the college during the first six months of 1995 (while President James O. Freedman was on sabbatical); as acting provost and as provost. Wright is a specialist in American history, particularly American political history, and is the author or editor of five books, including Progressive Yankees: Republican Reformers in New Hampshire (1987), and The Politics of Populism (1974). He has been a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellow and a Charles Warren Fellow at Harvard University. He is on the board of the Sherman Fairchild Foundation and is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is married to Susan DeBevoise Wright.
