Story contributions courtesy of Denison University, Wittenberg University, and Kenyon College

Denison University President Dr. Adam Weinberg has been named the president of the North Coast Athletic Conference and Wittenberg University President Dr. Michael L. Frandsen, has been selected to serve as the vice president for the 2022-23 and 2023-24 academic years.

Weinberg, who served as the NCAC's vice president since July 1, 2020, succeeds Kenyon College President Dr. Sean M. Decatur, as the president of the NCAC. Decatur will serve a two-year term as the NCAC Immediate Past President on the Executive Committee.

Weinberg became the 20th president of Denison University in 2013. He has focused on positioning Denison in ways that address the major issues facing higher education in the 21st century, including affordability, career readiness, internationalization, civic education, learning outcomes, and social inclusion.

Under Dr. Weinberg's leadership, Denison has expanded the curriculum with a new generation of academic programs, global programs, and a deepening of the arts, including the construction of the Michael D. Eisner Center for the Performing Arts. Denison's new programs in Global Commerce, Data Analytics, Financial Economics, Journalism, and Health, Exercise and Sports Studies are forging new pathways for the liberal arts.

A second major area of emphasis has been career exploration. Denison has launched the Austin E. Knowlton Center for Career Exploration, which is reinventing how liberal arts colleges prepare students for careers and professions. For this work, Dr. Weinberg was recognized by the National Association of Colleges and Employers for innovation with the inaugural 2017 Career Services Champion Award. Dr. Weinberg is heavily involved in national conversations about career preparation through his work with The Council on Competitiveness and The Columbus Partnership.

Dr. Weinberg's intellectual roots are in the civic impacts of higher education in unlocking the potential of individuals and communities. He has brought this passion to Denison where work is underway to focus on residential halls as sites for civic learning, and the recently launched Red Frame Lab for design thinking. Underlying this work, Dr. Weinberg has focused Denison on a campus-wide effort to deepen mentorship, which he believes is the defining feature of a transformative education.

Prior to coming to Denison, Dr. Weinberg served as president and CEO of World Learning, where he led education programs in more than 70 countries. Dr. Weinberg started his career at Colgate University (1995 through 2005), where he was a member of the sociology and anthropology department and also served as vice president and dean of the college.

A native of Texas, Dr. Weinberg's passion for ice hockey took him to New England, where he attended Deerfield Academy and Bowdoin College. He studied at Cambridge University before earning his master's and doctoral degrees in sociology at Northwestern University. He has published widely.

Dr. Weinberg is a member of The Council on Foreign Relations. He has served on a variety of national and local boards, including The Talloires Network, InterAction, The Works, The Great Lakes College Association, The Ohio Foundation for Independent Colleges, and the Alliance for International Education and Cultural Exchange.

Frandsen was unanimously elected the 15th president of Wittenberg University on Feb. 10, 2017. His tenure officially began July 1, 2017.

Frandsen came to Wittenberg from Oberlin College where he served as vice president for finance and administration. In addition to overseeing finance and accounting, facilities, human resources, information technology, and investments at Oberlin, Frandsen served on the strategic planning steering committee and the enrollment management team. During his tenure, Oberlin undertook several major construction projects, including the Peter B. Lewis Gateway Center, a mixed-use facility that will receive LEED Platinum certification.

Prior to joining Oberlin in 2014, Frandsen spent 10 years at Albion College in Michigan, where he held four different roles. Initially a faculty member in economics and management, he went on to serve as director of the Gerstacker Institute for Business and Management, an honors business program. In 2009, he joined the senior leadership team as vice president for finance and administration. For his final year at Albion, 2013-14, Frandsen was interim president.

Before joining Albion, Frandsen spent five years at Juniata College in Pennsylvania, where he served as a faculty member in the accounting, business and economics department, as well as in the information technology department. Frandsen also taught undergraduate and graduate courses at Colorado College, St. Edward's (Texas) University, and his alma mater, The Pennsylvania State University.

Prior to his career in higher education, Frandsen worked in corporate finance for global companies in the telecommunication, chemical and electronics industries. Although his posts were always domestic, he worked for companies based in Canada, Germany and France, as well as the United States, in his more than 10 years in the corporate world.

Additionally, Frandsen coached swimmers, from novice to Olympic Trials qualifiers, at clubs in Pennsylvania, Tennessee and Colorado before pursuing his corporate career. He continued to coach part-time occasionally prior to his work in higher education.

Frandsen earned his Ph.D. in management, with an emphasis on strategic management, from the University of Texas at Austin. His dissertation examined how stock prices respond to announcements about new chief executives. He also holds an M.B.A. and B.S. in finance, both from The Pennsylvania State University.

Decatur became the 19th president of Kenyon College on July 1, 2013.

He is a lifelong champion for the liberal arts and a leading voice in the national conversation about higher education. Under his leadership, Kenyon has attracted its most diverse and academically talented incoming classes in history. In 2017, Kenyon became a member of the American Talent Initiative, a coalition of colleges working to expand access and opportunity by graduating 50,000 additional highly talented lower-income students by 2025. Additional efforts like the Kenyon Access Initiative, combined with an ensemble of Kenyon programs aimed at increasing diversity and fostering inclusion, support Decatur's commitment to building educational communities that talented students from all backgrounds can access, and where they thrive.

This commitment has been a priority in the two strategic plans Decatur has led at Kenyon: the Kenyon 2020 Plan, and, starting in 2021, "Foundations for Kenyon's Third Century" — a plan based on Kenyon's revised 2020 mission statement to "build strong foundations for lives of purpose and consequence." This plan focuses on three key areas: strengthening Kenyon's commitment to rigorous, dynamic learning in a contemporary context; building a thriving and diverse community united by a shared sense of belonging; and reinforcing a strong financial foundation for increased access and sustainability.

Decatur has garnered significant support for these priorities through the Our Path Forward comprehensive campaign, publicly launched in October 2018 with a goal of $300 million and buoyed by a $75 million lead gift. In 2021, the campaign's goal was increased to $500 million thanks to an anonymous $100 million gift, the largest in the College's history, and renamed Our Path Forward to the Bicentennial, recognizing Kenyon's upcoming 200th birthday in 2024.

With a background in chemistry, Decatur often teaches courses including seminars in biochemistry and has developed Kenyon's natural sciences division, with the College becoming a leader in providing students with experiences rivaling those found at major research universities.

Prior to assuming the Kenyon presidency, Decatur served as a professor of chemistry and biochemistry and as the dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Oberlin College from 2008 to 2013. From 1995 to 2008, he was an assistant and associate professor of chemistry at Mount Holyoke College, where he helped establish a top research program in biophysical chemistry. He was a visiting scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology from 2004 to 2005. 

Decatur has won research grants from the National Science Foundation and National Institutes of Health and from private foundations including the Alzheimer's Association, Dreyfus Foundation and Research Corporation for Science Advancement. He is the author of numerous scholarly articles and has received a number of national awards for his scholarship. Decatur was named a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2017 and was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2019.

Decatur's writing has appeared online in the Washington Post, the Chronicle of Higher Education and the New York Times Room for Debate commentary forum. He has twice appeared at SXSWedu and been a guest on the Ezra Klein Show on Vox. One of his essays, "When the Number 9 Bus Was Like Home, and Downtown Was My Playground," was selected for the 2012 book "Rust Belt Chic: The Cleveland Anthology."

Born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio, Decatur attended the Hawken School before earning his bachelor's degree at Swarthmore College, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa in 1990. He earned a doctorate in biophysical chemistry at Stanford University in 1995.

Founded in 1983, the North Coast Athletic Conference consists of nine academically selective colleges and universities - Denison University, DePauw University, Hiram College, Kenyon College, Oberlin College, Ohio Wesleyan University, Wabash College, Wittenberg University and the College of Wooster along with affiliate members Allegheny College and Earlham College (field hockey). The NCAC sponsors 23 championship sports, 11 for men and 12 for women.