The NCAA News - News and Features

February 3, 1997

Syracuse's Shaw elected first chair of I Board of Directors

Kenneth A. Shaw, chancellor of Syracuse University, has been elected as the first chair of the NCAA Division I Board of Directors.

Shaw was elected by the 15-member presidential board during the recent NCAA Convention in Nashville, Tennessee. He will serve a two-year term and may not be immediately re-elected to the position.

Shaw previously served as chair of the Division I Task Force to Review the NCAA Membership Structure and was chair of the Division I transition Board of Directors. He also has served as a member of the NCAA Presidents Commission.

The 10th chancellor of Syracuse University, Shaw has served as a university chief executive officer for nearly 20 years. Before coming to Syracuse in 1991, he was president of the University of Wisconsin system, where he presided over a 26-campus system that served more than 160,000 students.

In addition, Shaw was chancellor of the Southern Illinois University system from 1979 to 1986, president of Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville from 1977 to 1979, and vice-president and dean of the university at Towson State University from 1969 to 1977.

Currently, Shaw is leading Syracuse through the most comprehensive restructuring process in its history. The university is seeking to become the nation's leading student-centered research university.

He has received honorary degrees from Purdue University (1990), Illinois State University (1987), Illinois College (1986) and Towson State (1979). In addition, he won an NCAA Silver Anniversary Award in 1986 (he was an outstanding basketball player as an undergraduate at Illinois State).

Shaw chairs the board of directors of the Council of Independent Colleges and Universities and is a member of the boards of directors of the Student Loan Marketing Association and the American Council on Education.

An Illinois native, Shaw earned a bachelor of science degree at Illinois State, a master of education degree at the University of Illinois, Champaign, and a Ph.D. in sociology at Purdue in 1966.