Nathan Hatch

Winston-Salem, NC

Nathan Hatch served as the 13th president of Wake Forest University from 2005 until 2021. With an unwavering commitment to the University’s liberal arts tradition, he steered Wake Forest through a transformational campus construction and expansion effort, strategic realignments in business and medicine, and the $1 billion Wake Will Lead capital campaign, the largest fundraising effort in the University’s history. Among Dr. Hatch’s top priorities was to make Wake Forest a place that forms not just effective, but ethical leaders, leading him to establish the Program for Leadership and Character in 2016. During his tenure, Wake Forest achieved its highest U.S. News and World Report ranking—23rd among 281 national universities—and became a national leader in test-optional admissions and the college-to-career experience. A respected leader in higher education, Dr. Hatch has served on the board of the American Council on Education and has chaired the Division I Board of Directors of the NCAA and the board of directors of the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities. He was elected to the Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2014.

Before arriving at Wake Forest, he was provost at the University of Notre Dame, where he joined the faculty before moving into administration. A religious historian and graduate of Wheaton College, Dr. Hatch received his master’s and doctoral degrees from Washington University in St. Louis and held post-doctoral fellowships at Harvard and Johns Hopkins. His 1989 book, The Democratization of American Christianity, is regularly cited as one of the most influential books in the study of American religion.