Dr. Clifton R. Wharton, Jr.(Keynote Speaker)
Dr. Wharton has been a Black pioneer in four different fields - philanthropy, foreign economic development, higher education and business. He was the longest serving Chancellor of the State University of New York System (1978-87), this nation's largest university system with 64 campuses.
He is the former Chairman and CEO of TIAA-CREF, the world's largest pension fund with assets of $390 billion. He thereby became the first Black to become CEO of a Fortune 500 company. Among his previous pioneering positions are President Emeritus of Michigan State University (1970-78) the first Black to head a predominately white major university in the US; and Chairman of the Rockefeller Foundation (1982-87), the first Black to be chairman of a major foundation. The son of a career Foreign Service Officer and Ambassador, Dr. Wharton has served six presidents in foreign policy advisory posts and most recently in 1993 was appointed by President Clinton as Deputy Secretary of State, the second highest post in the U.S. Department of State.
Dr. Wharton's first 22 year philanthropic career began in Latin America with Nelson A. Rockefeller. Subsequently, he was resident in Southeast Asia from 1958 to 1964 representing the Agricultural Development Council, headed by John D. Rockefeller 3rd. During this period, he also supervised the ADC's programs in Thailand, Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, as well as taught economics at the University of Malaya. Many of his students and grantees are today's leaders in Southeast Asia. His research ranged from the supply response of Southeast Asian perennial crops and international trade to the economics of subsistence agriculture and the impact of the Green Revolution. Dr. Wharton was the chairman of the Board for International Food and Agricultural Development, U.S. AID. Department of State (1976-83), co-Chairman, Commission on Security and Economic Assistance, member of the Presidential Commission on World Hunger, and of the Presidential Advisory Committee on Trade Policy and Negotiations.
Among his former corporate directorships are Ford Motor Company, Time Warner, Equitable Life, Tenneco, Inc., Federated Department Stores, Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), New York Stock Exchange, Harcourt General, TIAA-CREF, and Vice Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. His extensive non-profit trusteeships have ranged from the Council on Foreign Relations and the Carnegie Foundation for Teaching to the Aspen Institute and the Asia Society. Dr. Wharton is a member of the Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics and is a trustee of the Clark Foundation and the Bassett Hospital (Cooperstown, NY)
A graduate of Boston Latin School, he holds a BA honors degree in History from Harvard, an MA from the School of Advanced International Studies of John Hopkins University, a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Chicago. In 1983, he received the U.S. Presidential Award on World Hunger and in 1994 the American Council on Education Distinguished Service Award for Lifetime Achievement. He has been awarded 63 honorary doctorates.
His wife, Dolores D. Wharton, has had her own distinguished career as a corporate director of Gannett (media), Phillips Petroleum, the Kellogg Company, COMSAT, New York Telephone, Albany Capital Bank and Trust. She has served as a trustee of many non-profit organizations such as MIT, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), National Public Radio (NPR), the Museum of Modern Art. Albany Law School, the Asia Society, the Aspen Institute, and the Asia Foundation. She is the founder and CEO of the Fund of Corporate Initiatives, Inc. to increase the upward mobility of women and minorities in the corporate world. She has received nine honorary doctorates.
In 1982, Michigan State University honored the two Whartons by naming their new Center for the Performing Arts for them, and in 1987 the State University of New York placed their name on its Economic Research Center at the Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government in Albany. NY.