哈利J. 以拦小., award-winning teacher, internationally renowned theater scholar 和 leader in undergraduate education, is Occidental College’s 16th president.
Elam took office July 1, 2020, the unanimous choice of the Occidental Board of Trustees as the successor to Jonathan Veitch, who announced in January 2019 that he planned to step down after an 11-year presidency.
Elam came to Occidental from Stanford University, where he served as vice provost for undergraduate education for a decade 和 was responsible for nearly all policies 和 programs relating to the university’s 7,200 undergraduate students. He helped lead a major rethinking of Stanford’s undergraduate curriculum as well as a separate effort to create a new vision for the university’s student residences.
In addition to his role as vice provost for undergraduate education, since 2017 Elam served simultaneously as Stanford’s first vice president for the arts, overseeing Bing Concert Hall, the Cantor Art Museum 和 all other non-departmental programs, 和 as senior vice provost for education, responsible for the Haas Center for Public Service 和 other student-facing programs.
Having grown up in the turbulent era of court-ordered school desegregation in Boston, Elam also is a leader on issues of diversity 和 inclusion. Among his many efforts at Stanford, he created the Institute for Diversity in the 艺术, initiated a summer bridge program for first-year students from under-resourced high schools, 和 designed a program to increase the number of students of color pursuing graduate degrees in STEM fields.
A graduate of Harvard College, Elam earned his doctorate in the dramatic arts at UC Berkeley. He is the author 和 co-editor of seven books, 包括 the award-winning The Past as Present in the Drama of August Wilson (University of Michigan Press, 2006), 和 dozens of journal articles 和 book chapters. He was inducted into the American Academy of 艺术 和 Sciences as well as the College of Fellows of the American Theatre. The Association for Theatre in Higher Education awarded him its highest recognition, the Distinguished Scholar Award, 和 he is the recipient of the Career Achievement Award from the American Society for Theatre Research. At Stanford, where he joined the faculty in 1990, he was awarded six different teaching awards.
In addition to his scholarly work, Elam has directed professionally for more than 25 years, 包括 Tod, the Boy, Tod by Talvin Wilks for the Oakl和 Ensemble Company, 和 Blues for an Alabama Sky by Pearl Cleague for Theaterworks in Palo Alto, winner of Drama-Logue Awards for Best Production, 最好的设计, Best Ensemble Cast 和 Best Direction. He also has directed several of August Wilson’s plays, 包括 Radio Golf, Joe Turner's Come 和 Gone, Two Trains Running, 和 栅栏.
他的妻子, Michele Elam, is William Robertson Coe Professor in the Humanities at Stanford 和 an associate director of the Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence. Their daughter Claire Patterson, a 2016 Stanford graduate, lives 和 works in 洛杉矶.
