Nannerl "Nan" Overholser Keohane (born September 18, 1940, in Blytheville, Arkansas) is an American political theorist and former president of Wellesley College and Duke University. Until September 2014, Keohane was the Laurance S. Rockefeller Distinguished Visiting Professor of Public Affairs and the University Center for Human Values at Princeton University. She is now a professor in social sciences at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, where she is researching the theory and practice of leadership in democratic societies.
Academic career
Keohane earned her first undergraduate degree in 1961 from Wellesley College,
Keohane became the thirteenth president at Duke in 1993. During her tenure, she was also a professor of political science, led efforts to increase minority student enrollment, diversified faculty, and oversaw the Women's Initiative. Keohane also helped raise $2.36 billion during The Campaign for Duke, which ended in 2003, making it the fifth-largest campaign in the history of American higher education.
Keohane left her position at Duke in 2004, and in 2005 was named Laurance S. Rockefeller Distinguished Visiting Professor of Public Affairs at the Woodrow Wilson School and the University Center for Human Values at Princeton University.
In 2009-11, Keohane chaired a committee on undergraduate women's leadership at Princeton University, appointed by President Shirley M. Tilghman. She has also launched discussions on the future of women's leadership, and on the future of liberal education.
In fall 2013 she was at the American Academy in Berlin as the Richard C. Holbrooke Distinguished Visitor.
Other positions
In 1991, Keohane was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 1994, she was elected to the American Philosophical Society. Keohane was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame in 1995. She has served on many community and professional bodies, including being active in the Marshall Scholarship Alumni Association.
In 1996, following nearly 3 years of intense litigation over the estate of Doris Duke, Keohane was named as one of the "six people [who] would sit as trustees of the charitable foundations established by Miss Duke's will.". In 2008, Keohane was chair of the Board of Trustees of the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation (DDCF)Home | Doris Duke Foundation during the controversy over the Trustees decision to close and dismantle Duke Gardens, established in 1958 by Doris Duke in honor of her father James Buchanan Duke. Representatives of the DDCF stated that the Gardens were "perpetuating the Duke family history of personal passions and conspicuous consumption."
Keohane is a former member of the Harvard Corporation, the governing body of Harvard University, and a rare member of that body not to have earned a degree from Harvard. In April 2013, Keohane told Harvard students advocating for climate change divestment that they should instead "Thank BP" for its investment in clean energy. The comment caused an uproar among Harvard students, leading climate activist Bill McKibben to tweet the following:
<blockquote> "Harvard behaving outrageously to divestment campaign, trustee urges students to 'thank BP'"
Bill McKibben (@billmckibben) April 10, 2013
</blockquote>
Biographical notes
Keohane was born in Blytheville, Arkansas, and graduated from high school in Hot Springs, Arkansas.
Her first husband was Patrick Henry, a Professor of Religion at Swarthmore College.
Her husband is Robert Keohane, also a noted political scientist.