Robert Oden

From CarlWiki

Robert Oden Jr. (pronounced "oh-dean"), sometimes called Bob Oden, is the current president of Carleton College. He began his tenure on July 1, 2002.

Biography

Robert A. Oden was born in Vermillion, South Dakota. He graduated magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Harvard College. He then earned a second bachelor's degree and a master's degree from Cambridge University and a master's degree in Theology and a Ph.D. in Near Eastern Languages and Literatures from Harvard. He served on the faculty of Dartmouth College as a professor of Religion from 1972 to 1989. There he received Dartmouth's first Distinguished Teaching Prize.

He then went on to administrative positions, first as headmaster of The Hotchkiss School in Lakeville, Connecticut from 1989 to 1995, and then as president of Kenyon College from 1995 to 2002, when he accepted the presidency at Carleton College. He also holds a faculty appointment in the Religion Department. He said of his decision to come to Carleton College, referring to his childhood just across the border from Minnesota: "Perhaps all Americans have come to know parts of this great country in which we feel special comfort and a sense of being at home; it is this that has meant for [me and my wife] Carleton College’s special appeal."

Oden is a longtime recreational runner who enjoys the trails of Cowling Arboretum, and is also an avid fly-fisherman. He and his wife Teresa Johnson reside in Nutting House.