Buckley Fellows are invited to a dinner seminar with Mark Nemec, the 9th Ignatian and first lay President of Fairfield University, on the topic, "American Universities as American Exceptionalism: The Past, Present, and Future of American Higher Education."
On July 1, 2017,
Mark R. Nemec, PhD, became the first lay and ninth Ignatian President of Fairfield University.
Working with his senior leadership team, constituents across campus, and the University’s alumni and civic communities, President Nemec has positioned Fairfield to be a modern, Jesuit Catholic University of national prominence — committed to lifelong learning, holistic formation, and expansive partnership while instantiating academic excellence, fostering comprehensive achievement, and advancing educational access.
Under President Nemec’s leadership, Fairfield has renewed its commitment to the nearly 500-year-old traditions of Jesuit pedagogy, with an emphasis on excellence in all things, care for the whole student, and a broad-based liberal arts and sciences foundation. This values-based, student-centric, outcomes-focused approach is dedicated to forming men and women for and with others, in pursuit of societal stewardship and productive citizenship.
At the same time, he has led the University through a course of expansion and innovation designed to meet the challenges of the 21st century, and has expanded the University’s reach to learners of all ages, emphasizing: innovation in teaching methods, embracement of the potential of big data and emerging technologies, the launch of new graduate and professional programs designed to meet the needs of today’s students, and the fostering of industry and community partnerships to strengthen the University’s reputation as a leader in contemporary higher education.
Since 2017, Fairfield has seen traditional undergraduate enrollment grow from 4,003 to 5,276 while increasing selectivity to 25 percent, ranking it fifth amongst all Catholic universities and colleges, up from 50. In this same period, Fairfield’s total enrollment has grown from 5,197 to 7,161.
A graduate of Loyola High School, Jesuit College Preparatory in Los Angeles, President Nemec earned a BA in English from Yale, where he was an All-Ivy League rugby player. He received an MA in education and a PhD in political science from the University of Michigan. Early in his career, he taught American politics as a visiting assistant professor at Davidson College, and as an instructor at the University of Michigan.
Prior to joining Fairfield, Dr. Nemec served as the dean of the Graham School of Continuing Liberal and Professional Studies at the University of Chicago. Before joining the University of Chicago, Dr. Nemec served as president and chief executive officer of Eduventures, a Boston-based information services firm providing research and advice to the higher education community. He previously had been a member of the executive team of Forrester Research, a provider of similar services to the technology industry.
Dr. Nemec is the author of
Ivory Towers and Nationalist Minds: Universities, Leadership, and the Development of the American State (University of Michigan Press, 2006), and a contributor to
The Educational Legacy of Woodrow Wilson (University of Virginia Press, 2012).
Beyond his research on the role of higher education in American political development, Dr. Nemec has been a frequent speaker on the current and future state of higher education and has presented to a diverse array of audiences including the White House’s Forum on College Affordability, the British Council’s Going Global, the New England Board of Higher Education’s Summit on Cost in Higher Education, and the annual meetings of numerous higher education associations.
Dr. Nemec and his wife, Suzanne, are the parents of four children: Alex, Teddy, Philip, and Kit. In addition to his role as President of Fairfield University, Dr. Nemec is a professor in the politics department within the John Charles Meditz College of Arts and Sciences.
