On July 1, 2004, Donald M. Stewart retired from the position of Chief Executive Officer of The Chicago Community Trust, which he had joined in January 2000 and had retained the title of President until January 1, 2005. He currently is a Visiting Professor at The University of Chicago’s Harris School of Public Policy Studies, teaching courses in nonprofit management and philanthropy.

Prior to joining the Trust, Stewart spent an academic year at the Carnegie Corporation of New York, where he served as Senior Program Officer of the Education Division and Special Advisor to the President. For 12 and one half years, Stewart served as President/CEO of The College Board in New York. Before coming to The College Board, Stewart had served for ten years as the sixth president of Spelman College, the 120-year-old historically black women’s college in Atlanta named for the family of Mrs. John D. Rockefeller, Sr. The Donald and Isabel Stewart Living and Learning Center on the Spelman campus was named in honor of Stewart and his wife, Isabel, who is also an educator.

At the University of Pennsylvania from 1970 to 1976, Stewart served as executive assistant to the president; instructor in public policy analysis and subsequently as associate dean of arts and sciences and assistant professor in the Department of City and Regional Planning. Previously, Stewart was a staff member of the Overseas Development Division of The Ford Foundation from 1962 to 1969, with assignments in Lagos, Nigeria; Cairo, Egypt; and Tunis, Tunisia, as well as in the Foundation’s New York office, concluding as Program Officer in its Middle East-Africa Program.
Stewart is currently a director of Sotheby’s and a member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, the Council on Foreign Relations, the Chicago Council on Global Affairs and a trustee of Metropolitan Family Services in Chicago.

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.

Stewart is a native of Chicago. He is married to the former Isabel Carter Johnston, and they have two sons, Jay and Carter, both lawyers.