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Dr. Nathan O. Hatch, provost of the University of Notre Dame and a distinguished alumnus of Wheaton College, will address both the undergraduate and graduate classes of 1999 during commencement exercises at Wheaton College on May 8-9, 1999. Saturday, May 8, his remarks to 125 graduating graduate students will be titled "Will the Evangelical Market Overwhelm the Church?" On Sunday, May 9, he will speak on "Ambition and the Soul" to 550 graduating seniors.
A professor of history on the Notre Dame faculty since 1975, Hatch regularly is cited as one of the most influential scholars studying the history of religion in America. His 1989 book, "The Democratization of American Christianity," published by Yale University Press, garnered three awards, including the 1989 Albert Outler Prize in Ecumenical Church History and the 1990 John Hope Franklin Prize as the best book in American studies. Professor Gordon Wood of Brown University called it "the best book on religion in the early Republic that has ever been written." It also was chosen in a survey of 2,000 historians and sociologists as one of the two most important books in the study of American religion.
Hatch has written "The Sacred Cause of Liberty: Republican Thought and the Millennium in Revolutionary New England" and "The Professions in American History," and edited a number of books as well.
In 1996, Hatch became only the third person to be named provost of the University of Notre Dame since the office's inception in 1970. As provost, he has concentrated on three areas of academic improvement: nurturing centers for academic excellence, revitali-zing undergraduate education, and recruiting outstanding faculty.
He has expanded the university's Keough Institute for Irish Studies and its Nanovic Institute for European Studies, established the Center for Transgene Research, and enhanced the Medieval Institute. He also has been integral in the creation of the Kaneb Center for Teaching and Learning, which focuses on undergraduate education.
Hatch has devoted much attention to major academic appointments, including new deans of the colleges of Engineering, Arts and Letters, and Business Administration; a new chair of the School of Architecture, a new director of libraries, and new assistant provosts for enrollment and academic outreach.
In addition, he has worked to enhance Catholic intellectual life at the university through the establishment of the Erasmus Institute, a major center for scholarship informed by Catholic thought.
Before becoming provost, Hatch had served as vice president of graduate studies and research since 1989. In that capacity, he instilled a vision of "small but superb" graduate programs that attracted more and better students to the university, as well as substantial new resources. He oversaw the university's master's degree and doctoral programs and was responsible both for the $20-million budget that now supports them as well as for external funding of research.
A summa cum laude graduate of Wheaton College in 1968, Hatch earned his master's and doctoral degrees in 1972 and 1974, respectively, from Washington University in St. Louis. He has held postdoctoral fellowships at Harvard and Johns Hopkins universities and has been awarded research grants by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Council of Learned Societies, and the American Antiquarian Society.
Hatch served on Wheaton College's Board of Trustees for nine years and was president of the American Society of Church History in 1993. Active in South Bend civic affairs, he has been chair of the St. Joseph Medical Center board. Hatch also serves on the National Advisory Board of the Salvation Army.
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