Donald M. Stewart, former associate dean of the School of Arts & Sciences at Penn, director of continuing education, and assistant to Penn’s president who went on serve as Spelman College president, died on Sunday in Chicago of a heart attack. He was 80.

Dr. Stewart was born in Chicago and graduated from Grinnell College in Iowa in 1959 with a BA in political science; he was the first in his family to complete college. He went on to earn a master’s in political science from Yale and a master’s and doctorate in public administration from Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government.

Dr. Stewart joined the staff at the University of Pennsylvania in 1970 as an executive assistant to President Martin Meyerson. He went on partial leave in 1972 as the recipient of a Ford Foundation Study Award that supported a major study of the ways higher education relates to government. During that time he retained ties with the Office of the President and the Fels Center of Government, where he served as a lecturer and staff member. He went on to hold several positions at Penn, including the Fels Center’s coordinator of continuing education and director of the Higher Education Research Project, instructor in public policy analysis, and assistant professor in the department of city and regional planning. In 1975, he took office in a joint reporting structure as associate dean of FAS (now SAS) and director of the College of General Studies (CGS, now LPS), and as an assistant/counselor to the provost for continuing education. In 1974, Dr. Stewart chaired a task force refining proposals for the restructure of continuing education at Penn.

He left  Penn  in 1976 to become president of Spelman College, the historically black women’s college in Atlanta, a position he held for the next 10 years. His appointment was opposed by students who had wanted the school’s trustees to choose a black woman as president, but his tenure was incredibly successful, including growing the endowment dramatically, increasing student enrollment, and creating a chemistry department, a comprehensive writing program, and a Women’s Research and Resource Center.

After Spelman, Dr. Stewart took over the College Board, the non-profit private organization that administers the SATs and a scholarship service, turning down an offer to become assistant secretary of education. During that time, in 1995, he came back to Penn to speak at the CGS graduation ceremony. Dr. Stewart was a director of The New York Times Company from 1986 to 2005. After retiring from the College Board in 1999, he was a special adviser to the president and senior program officer in the education division of the Carnegie Corporation of New York. From 2000 to 2005, he was chief executive of the Chicago Community Trust, where he supported a charter school initiative called Urban Prep Academies. Dr. Stewart was a visiting professor at the University of Chicago’s Harris School of Public Policy from 2005 to 2011. In 2010, he was appointed to the Commission on Presidential Scholars by President Barack Obama.

Dr. Stewart is survived by his wife, Isabel Carter Johnston; sons, Jay Ashton Stewart, Carter Mitchell Stewart and Gojeb Frehywot; and eight grandchildren.

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