Research Triangle Park, N.C. — The Board of Trustees of the National Humanities Center has elected philanthropist and financial services veteran Patricia R. Morton of Charlotte, NC, as its new chairman. She succeeds Peter A. Benoliel of Conshohocken, PA, in this leadership role. She is the first woman to hold the position and the first North Carolinian since William C. Friday.
The Center’s Board also elected Princeton University historian William C. Jordan as vice chairman at its recent meeting and added four new trustees: Dennis M. Campbell, Jennifer M. Daniels, Susan McClary, and Susan R. Wolf.
Morton has served on the board of the National Humanities Center since 2004 and co-chaired the Center’s recently concluded capital campaign that raised over $19 million. She is founder and CEO of PRM Advisors in Charlotte. Prior to that she spent the majority of her career at JP Morgan and Deutsche Bank Alex Brown. In addition to her work with the National Humanities Center, she is a member of the board of directors of the North Carolina Biotechnology Center and the Bechtler Museum of Modern Art in Charlotte, NC; a trustee of Johnson C. Smith University; and a member of the national advisory boards for Carolina Performing Arts at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University.
“The humanities are essential to maintaining a healthy civil society,” said Morton on her election. “It has been a pleasure to serve on the Center’s board for the past ten years, and I look forward to working with my fellow trustees to ensure that the Center continues as a place where scholarship is prized and humanities education is supported.”

William C. Jordan is Dayton-Stockton Professor of History and chairman of the History Department at Princeton University. He is the author of nine books, including Men at the Center: Redemptive Governance under Louis IX (2009), and editor of several others. Jordan is a Fellow of the Medieval Academy of America, the American Philosophical Society, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He has been a trustee of the National Humanities Center since 2002, and has served recently as chair of the board’s scholarly programs committee. As of April of this year, he has also assumed the presidency of the Medieval Academy of America.
Dennis Campbell is headmaster emeritus of Woodberry Forest School and was previously dean of the Divinity School and professor of theology at Duke University. Campbell is the author or editor of eight books on ethical and theological subjects. He is also involved with a wide range of professional and philanthropic groups, including serving as vice chairman of The Duke Endowment; as a trustee of James Madison’s Montpelier and Constitutional Studies Center and a member of the executive committee of The Association of Boarding Schools.
Jennifer M. Daniels has, until recently, been senior vice president, general counsel and secretary of NCR Corporation and, in November assumed the role of chief legal officer and secretary of Colgate-Palmolive. Prior to her work at NCR, she served as general counsel for Barnes and Noble and as an attorney in a variety of roles for IBM. A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, she received her law degree from Harvard Law School where she currently serves on the advisory board of the Program on the Legal Profession. She is also a member of the Parents Council of Davidson College and is past chair of the board of trustees of the Greenwich Country Day School.
Susan McClary is professor of music at Case Western Reserve University where her research focuses on the cultural criticism of music, both the European canon and contemporary popular genres. She is the author or editor of nine books, including her most recent monograph, Desire and Pleasure in Seventeenth Century (2012). McClary has chaired the board of directors for the American Council of Learned Societies and served on the editorial boards of a number of scholarly journals. Widely recognized for her scholarship with awards and grants, in 1995 she was the recipient of a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship.
Susan R. Wolf is Edna J. Koury Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where her work touches on a variety of topics in moral philosophy and the philosophy of mind. She is a past president of the Eastern Division of the American Philosophical Association, and a member of the American Association of Arts and Sciences and the American Philosophical Society. Her published works include the classic articles “Moral Saints” and “Sanity and the Metaphysics of Responsibility,” as well as Meaning in Life and Why It Matters (2012) and Freedom Within Reason (1990). In 2002 she received the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation’s Distinguished Achievement in the Humanities Award.

About the National Humanities Center

The National Humanities Center (nationalhumanitiescenter.org) is one of the world’s leading institutes for advanced study and the only one dedicated exclusively to the humanities. Privately incorporated and governed by a distinguished board of trustees from academic, professional, and public life, the Center was planned under the auspices of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and began operation in 1978. It provides a national focus for the best work in the liberal arts, drawing attention to the enduring value of ancient and modern history, language and literature, ethical and moral reflection, artistic and cultural traditions and critical thought in every area of humanistic investigation. By encouraging excellence in scholarship, the Center seeks to ensure the continuing strength of the liberal arts and to affirm the importance of the humanities in American life.
Photo: Ron Jautz