Nan Keohane

Nannerl Overholser Keohane was the eighth president of Duke University, serving from July 1, 1993 to July 1, 2004, after having served as the President of Wellesley College from 1981 to 1993.

The daughter of a Presbyterian minister, Dr. Keohane was born in Blytheville, Arkansas, and grew up in Arkansas, Texas, and South Carolina. She is a 1961 graduate of Wellesley, where she graduated Phi Beta Kappa with honors in political science. Following graduation from Wellesley, she was awarded a Marshall Scholarship to Oxford University, where she earned the B.A.-M.A. with First Class Honours in philosophy, politics, and economics. She earned her Ph.D. in political science on a Sterling Fellowship from Yale University in 1967. Before assuming the presidency of Wellesley in 1981, she taught at Swarthmore College, the University of Pennsylvania, and Stanford University, where she was chair of the faculty senate and won the Gores Award for Excellence in Teaching.

Dr. Keohane, who also holds the rank of professor of political science, has written extensively in the fields of political philosophy, feminism, and education. She was vice president of the American Political Science Association from 1988 to 1990, is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Philosophical Society, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and chairs the Overseers Committee to Visit the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard. She was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame in October 1995, and won the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement in 1998.

Dr. Keohane is married to Robert O. Keohane, James B. Duke Professor of Political Science and professor in the Nicholas School of the Environment at Duke University. They have four grown children and seven grandchildren.

Writings

• Philosophy and the State in France: The Renaissance to the Enlightenment. Princeton, N.J. : Princeton University, 1980.
• Feminist Theory: A Critique of Ideology. Chicago : University of Chicago, 1982. [co-editor]
• A Community Worthy of the Name : Selected Speeches. Wellesley, Mass. : Wellesley College Alumnae Association, 1995.