Elected 1972; Life Trustee 1995
On July 1, 2004, Donald M. Stewart retired from the position of Chief Executive Officer of The Chicago Community Trust, a post he held since June 2000. He retained the title of President until January 1, 2005. He was a Visiting Professor at The University of Chicago’s Harris School of Public Policy Studies having completed a sabbatical from the Trust at the end of June 2005. Prior to joining the Trust, Stewart spent an academic year at the Carnegie Corporation in New York City, where he served as Senior Program Officer of the Education Division and Special Advisor to the President. He was responsible for grant making in higher education. For 12 and one half years, Stewart served as President and Chief Executive Officer of The College Board and as Adjunct Lecturer at the Kennedy School of Government for three years. Stewart is the former president of Spelman College, in Atlanta where he served for 10 years. He also served as an associate dean and assistant professor at the University of Pennsylvania, and as a staff member of the Overseas Development Division of the Ford Foundation with assignments in Nigeria, Egypt, and Tunisia. A former member of the Mayo Clinic and Teachers College, Columbia University Boards of Trustees, the Kennedy School of Government’s Visiting Committee, as well as a trustee of Common Cause and Independent Sector, he also served as a director of The New York Times Company, the Campbell Soup Company and Principal Financial Group. He now serves as an active director of Sotheby’s in New York and has been a trustee of Metropolitan Family Services in Chicago. He is an active member of The Chicago Club, The Chicago Council on Global Affairs and The Council on Foreign Relations. He is a Life Trustee of Grinnell College and is a member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences as well as the National Academy of Public Administration. Stewart earned his Bachelor of Arts degree at Grinnell College in 1959, with highest honors in political science. He received a Master of Arts in political science as a Woodrow Wilson Fellow at Yale University in 1962. At Harvard, he earned Master of Public Administration and Doctor of Public Administration degrees at the Kennedy School of Government in 1969 and 1975, respectively. In addition, he studied international law, organization, and economics at the Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva, Switzerland, from 1960 to 1962, and completed the Advanced Management Program at the Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration in the summer of 1983. Stewart is a native of Chicago, where he graduated from McCosh Grammar School and Hyde Park High School. He is married to Isabel Carter Stewart, former Executive Director of Girls Inc. and the Chicago Foundation for Women. They have two sons, Jay and Carter, both attorneys.
