May 05, 2025
Paige Haehlke
Ed Wingenbach ’91 to serve as next president of the American College of Greece
Ed Wingenbach ’91 has spent his career emphasizing the importance of a liberal arts education. In July, he’ll promote that value internationally as he leads the American College of Greece as its next president.
Wingenbach’s passion for liberal arts education factored heavily into his choice to attend Lake Forest College. The College's option to create your own major, along with the generous financial aid provided and research opportunities available, solidified his decision to attend.
Designing his own course of study in politics, philosophy, and religion, Wingenbach aimed to research the question of how communities create meaning, structure, and organization for themselves.
“Creating my own major allowed me to look at all three of these fields in a variety of ways and assess how they intersect, something I couldn’t have done if I had only studied one of them,” Wingenbach said.
Customizing his education in this way influenced how Wingenbach approached graduate school and his career. He pursued his PhD at the University of Notre Dame, which was the only school where he could take courses in multiple departments, and is currently the president of Hampshire College, where every student designs their own course of study.
“My education at Lake Forest has been really important to everything I’ve done since,” Wingenbach said. “It prepared me to be successful in any path I might have taken.”
After Wingenbach graduated with his PhD, he became a professor of political science at the University of Redlands. Throughout his time there, he chaired multiple departments and eventually stepped into a full-time administrative position.
“I really liked leading teams and doing the administrative work, and I decided I wanted to pursue it as a career,” Wingenbach explained. “The best thing about being a faculty member is working with students and solving problems together, and as an academic administrator I’m able to help make that experience work for everybody.”
Wingenbach became President of Hampshire College in 2019 at a time when the college’s future was uncertain. He led a multi-year strategic plan that increased enrollment significantly, modernized operations, restructured fundraising operations, strengthened alumni engagement, and more, which helped the institution recover and survive.
“When I first got to Hampshire College, it was 50-50 whether we were going to make it through the year, and that’s no longer in question,” Wingenbach said. “I’m incredibly proud that I had a hand in making it possible for this important institution to survive and to serve its students.”
“My education at Lake Forest has been really important to everything I’ve done since. It prepared me to be successful in any path I might have taken.”
Effective July 1, 2025, Wingenbach will serve as the president of the American College of Greece, a role he is greatly looking forward to; Greek culture and philosophy were central to his academic scholarship, and he has led alumni tours throughout the area.
For Wingenbach, this role is an opportunity to consider the global impact of a liberal arts education.
“Leading the largest and oldest American university in Europe comes with a significant global platform to extend the value of an American liberal arts education,” Wingenbach said. “This is especially important at a time when the US is somewhat turning away from what makes American education the most valuable.”
The American College of Greece is also a significant study abroad destination for students at Lake Forest College, and Wingenbach looks forward to engaging with them.
Lake Forest’s model of education and preparing students for life beyond college equipped Wingenbach with the necessary skills to adapt and face challenges throughout his career.
“I had opportunities to be engaged in so many different things inside and outside of the classroom at Lake Forest,” Wingenbach said. “Through those activities, I developed the capacity to move between different domains of knowledge, techniques, and strategies and be comfortable with any of them,” Wingenbach said.
This ability is what Wingenbach will bring with him to the American College of Greece to promote the value of a liberal arts education on a global scale.
“What I left Lake Forest with and what has guided my work since I was 21 is the knowledge that everything I do must be about a set of values and principles,” Wingenbach said. “Lake Forest gave me the tools to figure out how to put those values and principles into action."