Office of the President | Grant Cornwell

Prior to coming to Wooster, Cornwell served as vice president of the university and dean of academic affairs at St. Lawrence University in Canton, N.Y., from 2002 to 2007. As chief academic officer, he had management responsibility for the university’s 46 academic departments and interdisciplinary programs, the university libraries and gallery, intercollegiate athletics, and information technology.

Cornwell joined the St. Lawrence faculty as an instructor in philosophy in 1986. He served as associate dean of the first year from 1992 to 1997, and chair of the philosophy department from 1998 to 2002.

Nationally recognized for his work in defining liberal learning in a global environment, Cornwell served on the national advisory board of Liberal Education and Global Citizenship: The Arts of Democracy, a three-year faculty and curriculum development initiative of the Association of American Colleges and Universities, from 2001 to 2004. He also served as a fellow of the National Learning Communities Project, a leadership group convened by the Washington Center for Improving the Quality of Undergraduate Education, from 2000 to 2004. Currently, Cornwell serves on the advisory board for the National Institute for Technology and Liberal Education and is a member of the SAGE Group, formed as a collective of national educational leaders by the Association of American Colleges and Universities to work with institutions to realign practices toward more intentional undergraduate education.

A philosopher by training, Cornwell’s scholarship and teaching lie in the areas of human rights, globalization, and critical race theory. Cornwell is co-editor of two books: Global Multiculturalism: Comparative Perspectives on Ethnicity, Race, and Nation and Democratic Education in an Age of Difference: Redefining Citizenship in Higher Education. He has authored more than two dozen scholarly articles or chapters in edited volumes, as well as a CD-ROM on the history of slavery and the sugar industry in St. Kitts.

Cornwell holds a bachelor’s degree in philosophy and biology from St. Lawrence University and a master’s degree and doctorate in philosophy, both from the University of Chicago.

“Like so many in higher education, I have always had a very high opinion of The College of Wooster,” Cornwell says. “This is a place whose impact on students is truly transformative. How could it be otherwise at a college that allows every student, not just a fortunate handful, to work one-on-one with a faculty mentor on a major creative and intellectual project called Independent Study? I am honored to have been chosen to be a steward of Wooster’s distinctive mission.”