We are proud to congratulate Brian T. Edwards on his appointment as the 17th President of Haverford College starting on July 1, 2027. Edwards joined the Academic Leadership Institute (ALI) as a member of the 2023 cohort and recently attended the 2026 Alumni Program and Reunion.
Edwards currently serves as Dean of Tulane University’s School of Liberal Arts. Under his leadership, the school has expanded academic programs, strengthened interdisciplinary partnerships, and established new centers and initiatives, including Native American and Indigenous studies, the Department of Africana Studies, the Grant Center for the American Jewish Experience, and the Tulane Global Humanities Center. Prior to joining Tulane, Edwards worked nearly two decades at Northwestern University, where he served as the Crown Professor in Middle East Studies and founding director of the Program in Middle East and North African Studies.
An accomplished scholar of American, Middle Eastern, and North African culture, Edwards has dedicated his career to advancing global education and interdisciplinary scholarship. He earned his bachelor’s degree in English, magna cum laude, from Yale University, along with his MA, MPhil, and Ph.D., all in American Studies.
“It’s a tremendous honor to be invited to serve as Haverford’s next president,” says Edwards. “I’ve long been a passionate proponent of the value of the liberal arts, and Haverford, with its superlative faculty who bring cutting-edge research together with a commitment to teaching, has a special role to play. These are challenging times for higher education, but I am an optimist. I am convinced that a liberal arts undergraduate education is the best preparation for the careers and the challenges of the future, and that Haverford’s commitments to ethical leadership and community-oriented citizenship are precisely what’s needed to prepare the next generation for our common good.”
We congratulate Brian T. Edwards on this exciting appointment and look forward to seeing the impact of his leadership as he begins his presidency at Haverford College.
