Clarence Wyatt

Clarence Wyatt became the 14th president of Monmouth College on July 1, 2014. He came to Monmouth from Centre College in Danville, Kentucky, where he was Chief Planning Officer and Special Assistant to the President, and also the holder of the Pottinger Distinguished Professorship of History.

President Wyatt is a founding member of Presidents United to Solve Hunger(opens in a new tab), a United Nations-sponsored coalition of more than 60 colleges and universities worldwide united to fight against hunger and malnutrition. Monmouth was the first liberal arts colleges to join the coalition. President Wyatt has also served on the Federation of Independent Illinois Colleges and Universities Executive Committee; he serves on the Associated Colleges of the Midwest Presidents’ Council; and he is a member of the Presidents Council of the Associated Colleges of Illinois (ACI) and represents ACI presidents on the organization’s Strategic Planning Committee.

President Wyatt’s more than 40-year career in higher education began at Centre, where he played a key role in helping that college rise to a prominent place among national liberal arts colleges. President Wyatt was centrally involved in Centre’s fundraising efforts, helping to plan each of the college’s capital campaigns from 1979 through 2014. He also directed Centre’s strategic planning process since its inception in the early 1980s.

President Wyatt was the first recipient of Centre’s Young Alumnus Award, in 1993; he was the 2019 recipient of Centre’s Distinguished Alumnus Award; and he twice received the C. Eric Mount Award, presented to the faculty member who makes the greatest contributions to student life outside the classroom. President Wyatt also received awards from Centre for outstanding teaching and for extraordinary leadership in the life of the college.

President Wyatt has distinguished himself as a scholar of America’s involvement in the Vietnam War. He is the author of Paper Soldiers: The American Press and the Vietnam War, an acclaimed book about U.S. press coverage of the war. He co-edited The Vietnam Era, a digital collection of essays and primary sources, and has contributed chapters and essays to several collections on the Vietnam War; and he served as co-editor of Propaganda in Wartime America, a two-volume encyclopedia.

As a Fulbright Fellow, President Wyatt taught Vietnamese and U.S. history at Hanoi University in 2012. In 1986, he co-founded Heart of Danville (Ky.), which was recognized by the National Trust for Historic Preservation as the nation’s outstanding Main Street program in 2001. He has also been active in a number of other civic organizations.