Yale Chief Executive Leadership Institute Presents James E. Ryan, Ninth President of University of Virginia, with Yale Legend in Leadership Award

James E. Ryan, ninth president of the University of Virginia, will accept the Legend in Leadership Award on January 27 at the Yale Higher Education Leadership Summit at the Yale School of Management in New Haven, Connecticut. The award will be presented by Maurie McInnis, Yale’s 24th president; Peter Salovey, Yale’s 23rd president; Valerie Smith, Swarthmore College’s 15th president; and Phil Hanlon, Dartmouth University’s 18th president.

Summit organizer Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, the Lester Crown Professor in Management Practice at Yale SOM, commented: “We are honored to celebrate President James Ryan, a visionary leader who has embodied the ideal of a university that is both ‘great and good.’ A first-generation college student who graduated summa cum laude from Yale and was first in his class at the University of Virginia (UVA) School of Law, President Ryan has dedicated his career to expanding access to educational opportunity.

“As dean of the Harvard Graduate School of Education, he bolstered the faculty and redesigned the school’s master’s degree programs, earning recognition as a transformative leader. His successes gained national recognition and led to his return to UVA as its ninth president, marking the beginning of a remarkable tenure. In his first year, he announced that students from Virginia families earning less than $80,000 annually would attend tuition-free, and those earning less than $30,000 would have tuition, room, and board fully covered. Under his leadership, Ryan created more than 750 new endowed scholarships through the Bicentennial Scholars Fund and established nearly 140 new endowed professorships through the Bicentennial Professors Fund. He secured substantial gifts for the Karsh Institute of Democracy and a new performing arts center, opened UVA’s Northern Virginia campus to expand research and postgraduate presence in the Washington, D.C. market, and constructed new residential facilities and the Student Health and Wellness building.

“President Ryan’s leadership during the COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated his steady hand and unwavering purpose, guiding the university through an unprecedented transition to online learning and then successfully bringing students back to the historic campus. His scholarship on educational equity, including the critically acclaimed Five Miles Away, A World Apart, has shaped national discourse on access and opportunity in American education. His New York Times bestseller Wait, What? And Life’s Other Essential Questions, in turn, emphasizes the importance of asking questions to understand the perspectives of others before coming to conclusions.

“Perhaps most strikingly, President Ryan’s principled decision to resign rather than expose the university community to potential loss of federal funding, research grants, and student financial aid demonstrated what it truly means to put institutional welfare above personal position. As U.S. Senator Tim Kaine (D-VA) observed, the circumstances represented an unacceptable level of federal overreach into Virginia’s higher education. President Ryan’s selfless leadership sparked a groundswell of support, with faculty, students, and state leaders rallying behind his vision. He leaves UVA having implemented nearly all goals from its strategic plan well ahead of the 2030 target date, a testament to his extraordinary effectiveness as an institution-builder and his enduring commitment to the common good.”

Ryan served as president of the University of Virginia from 2018 to 2025. Prior to his presidency, he served as the Charles William Eliot Professor and Dean of the Harvard Graduate School of Education, where he increased the size, strength, and diversity of the faculty; oversaw an expansion of professional education; and initiated a school-wide effort to restructure its master’s degree programs.

During his tenure at UVA, Ryan established the nation’s first School of Data Science and surpassed the school’s $5 billion ‘Honor the Future’ campaign goal 18 months ahead of schedule, ultimately raising more than $6 billion—one of the largest fundraising campaigns ever by a public university. His efforts established hundreds of newly endowed scholarships and professorships, developed numerous facilities, and expanded UVA’s reach in Virginia and Washington, D.C. He instituted a $15/hour minimum living wage for all full-time, benefits-eligible employees and secured approval for an ambitious sustainability plan committing UVA to carbon neutrality by 2030.

A renowned scholar of constitutional law and educational equity, Ryan received his AB summa cum laude from Yale University and his JD from UVA, where he graduated first in his class on a full scholarship. He clerked for Chief Justice William Rehnquist and has argued before the U.S. Supreme Court. He spent 15 years on the UVA law faculty before being named dean at Harvard. His publications include the New York Times bestseller Wait, What? And Life’s Other Essential Questions and Five Miles Away, A World Apart, which Harvard’s Jennifer Hochschild praised as “just the right mix of case study and rigorous analysis.”

The Yale Legend in Leadership award was created 25 years ago to honor current and former CEOs and university presidents who serve as living legends, inspiring leaders across industries, sectors, and nations. Past recipients include: Amy Gutmann, 8th president of the University of Pennsylvania; Hanna Gray, 10th president, University of Chicago; Andrew Hamilton, 16th president, New York University; Lawrence S. Bacow, 29th president, Harvard University; Freeman A. Hrabowski III, 5th president, University of Maryland, Baltimore County; Donna E. Shalala, 5th president, University of Miami, and 18th secretary of health and human services; Johnnetta B. Cole, president emerita of the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art, and 7th president of Spelman College; Ruth Simmons, 8th president of Prairie View A&M University, and 18th president of Brown University; Steven Spielberg, filmmaker and CEO, Amblin Partners; Bernard Arnault, chair and CEO, LVMH; Ed Bastian, CEO, Delta Air Lines; Jensen Huang, founder, president, and CEO, NVIDIA; Mary Barra, CEO, General Motors; Indra Nooyi, chair and CEO, PepsiCo; Arne M. Sorenson, CEO, Marriot International; Brian C. Cornell, CEO, Target; Mary T. Barra, chairman and CEO, General Motors Company; Brian Moynihan, chairman and CEO, Bank of America; David M. Rubenstein, co-founder and co-executive chairman, The Carlyle Group; Leonard S. Schleifer, president and CEO, and George D. Yancopoulos, president and chief scientific officer, Regeneron Pharmaceuticals; Brian Roberts, CEO, Comcast; Marillyn Hewson CEO, Lockheed Martin; Jamie Dimon, CEO, JPMorgan Chase; and Ken Frazier, chairman and CEO, Merck. A full list of recipients is available online.

The summit theme is “Rebounding from Surviving to Thriving: Higher Education Regaining its Footing.” A group of 100 top university presidents and board chairs from globally renowned colleges and universities will engage in lively, candid discussions at this invitation-only leaders’ conference hosted at Yale SOM.

The conference leadership partners are TIAA, Russell Reynolds Associates, the Chronicle of Higher Education, and Slate. The conference knowledge partner is McKinsey & Company.