Thomas K. Hearn
Leaves from a President’s Notebook shares the wisdom of Thomas K. Hearn Jr., former President of Wake Forest University, and past chairman and board member of the Center for Creative Leadership. These short essays reflect Dr. Hearn’s thoughts ranging from growing up in rural Alabama to current topics including leadership development, college athletics, and the role of the modern university. Dr. Hearn graduated summa cum laude from Birmingham-Southern College, earned a divinity degree from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and a PhD in philosophy from Vanderbilt University. After teaching philosophy at the College of William and Mary for ten years, he returned to his home state in 1974 to start the philosophy department at the University of Alabama-Birmingham. Dr. Hearn was named Wake Forest University’s twelfth president on June 23, 1983, and served until 2005, the second-longest tenure in the University’s history. He oversaw the development of Wake Forest from a small, regional liberal arts Baptist institution into one of the nations’ premier independent universities. His efforts to raise the University’s national profile were recognized in 1994 when U.S. News & World Report moved Wake Forest into the national universities category in its annual college guide. Wake Forest has ranked among the top thirty universities in the country every year since.
