Dr. Robert Weisbuch to succeed former Gov. Thomas H. Kean.
Drew University announced Monday that Dr. Robert Weisbuch, president of the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation in West Windsor, will be its next president beginning July 1.
Drew’s current president, Thomas H. Kean, former two-term governor of New Jersey and chair of the national 9-11 Commission, announced his retirement in August 2004, effective June 30 of this year.
"We are confident that Robert Weisbuch is the right choice to be Drew’s next president," said Barbara Caspersen, chair of Drew’s board of trustees. "I believe everyone who met Dr. Weisbuch during our search process was struck by his commitment to the liberal arts and by the high quality of his academic and administrative credentials. As a recognized national spokesman for the liberal arts, he will help Drew further enhance its reputation as one of the best liberal arts universities in the nation."
"At Woodrow Wilson," Dr. Weisbuch said, "we emphasized the ideal of the engaged university, and Drew has all of its elements. At Drew, students are challenged both to take their thoughts as far as they can go and then to apply that learning to meet urgent social challenges.
"Drew’s undergraduate college thus reinvigorates the arts and sciences," he said. "Its theological school speaks to an understanding of different beliefs so important to a post-9/11 world and sponsors an exploration of spiritual meaning that goes well beyond sound-bite religion. Its graduate school adds the crucial ingredient of discovery, the excitement of the ongoing life of the academic disciplines. Together, we will create new synergies among Drew’s extraordinary parts. What a great opportunity.
"No one can replace Tom Kean," he added, "but I hope to honor him and this extraordinary institution by building upon his achievements over the last 15 years. Because of Gov. Kean’s efforts, Drew is poised to become a central player in the renaissance for the liberal arts a private university dedicated to the public good."
President Kean said, "I welcome Dr. Weisbuch and wish him great success. Drew is a special place, and I know he will be well received by his new colleagues. He brings exceptional experience and credentials to Drew, and I am confident that the university is in good hands."
As president of the Wilson Foundation, Dr. Weisbuch has emphasized the efficacy of the arts and sciences in initiatives such as "The Humanities at Work" and "The Responsive Ph.D.," a project involving 20 major institutions ranging from Princeton to Howard to UCLA. He also has taken on projects bridging K-12 and universities, notably the Gates Foundation-sponsored "Early Colleges" urban high schools with the learning environment of small universities like Drew.
He joined the foundation after 25 years at the University of Michigan, where he served as chair of the Department of English, associate vice president for research and interim dean of the graduate school.
Founded in 1945, the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation is an independent, nonprofit organization dedicated to the encouragement of excellence in education through the identification of critical needs and the development of effective national programs to address them.
Dr. Weisbuch received awards for both teaching and scholarship at Michigan, and he’s the author of books on Emily Dickinson and the stormy relationship between British and American authors in the 19th century. He received a bachelor’s degree from Wesleyan University in 1968 and his doctorate from Yale in 1972.
While dean of the School of Graduate Studies, he established a fund designed to improve the mentoring of graduate teaching assistants, created humanities and arts awards for faculty and made diversity an integral criterion in evaluating program quality.

