WESTERN MICHIGAN UNIVERSITY (Office of Marketing and Strategic Communications) — WMU President Edward Montgomery was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences on Satuday, October 12th, 2019.
This year’s class includes former first lady Michelle Obama, former governors Mitch Daniels and Deval Patrick, and some 200 others saluted by the academy for achievements in academia, the arts, business, government, and public policy and public affairs.
“It’s a humbling honor to be included with a group of very distinguished academics and public servants,” says Montgomery, accompanied by his family at the ceremony held at Harvard University, where he earned both a master’s and a doctoral degree in economics.
Montgomery, in addition to being WMU’s president, is a nationally renowned labor economist with a long and distinguished career in higher education and at the highest levels of federal government service. As an economist, he held positions in the administrations of U.S. Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, including as deputy secretary of the U.S. Department of Labor when Clinton was in the White House.
Others inductees in the 2019 class include author Jonathan Franzen, artist Mark Bradford, NPR host Michel Martin, University of Connecticut physics professor and former WMU professor, Nora Berrah, as well as recent WMU honorary degree recipient and landscape ecology and ecosystem restoration expert, Dr. Bojie Fu.
Montgomery was named WMU’s ninth president on Aug. 1, 2017. He came to WMU from Georgetown University, where he had served as founding dean and professor of economics at the McCourt School of Public Policy.
During a more than 35-year academic career, he has held faculty positions at Carnegie Mellon and Michigan State universities as well as the University of Maryland, winning teaching awards some five times over the years.
