Education Leader Robert Weisbuch to Speak at Fall Commencement

Robert Weisbuch, president of Drew University and former head of the Woodrow Wilson Foundation, will speak at the University of Hartford’s Fall Commencement on Sunday, Dec. 4, at 2:30 p.m., in Lincoln Theater.

Weisbuch will be presented with an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters at the Commencement ceremony, at which approximately 140 students will receive their degrees.

Weisbuch became president of Drew University in Madison, N.J., in July 2005, following an eight-year term as head of the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation. During his tenure at the Wilson Foundation, the foundation undertook a number of significant education reform initiatives such as The Humanities at Work, The Responsive Ph.D., Teachers as Scholars, and Early College High School. Weisbuch emphasized the foundation’s role in connecting higher education to social sectors beyond academia and in promoting interaction between grades K–12 and universities.

The Woodrow Wilson Foundation gave a $400,000 planning grant to the University of Hartford through its Early College High School Initiative, funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. That planning grant resulted in the establishment of the University High School of Science and Engineering, which is now in its second year.

Weisbuch joined the foundation after 25 years at the University of Michigan, where he served as English department chair, associate vice president for research, associate dean for faculty programs, and interim dean at the Rackham School of Graduate Studies.

Weisbuch is a graduate of Wesleyan University and earned his Ph.D. in English from Yale University. He received awards for both teaching and scholarship at Michigan, and he is the author of books on Emily Dickinson and the stormy relations between British and American authors in the 19th century.