Dan Porterfield
President and CEO, The Aspen Institute
Dan Porterfield is president and CEO of the Aspen Institute, a global nonprofit committed to realizing a free, just, and equitable society. He was previously president of Franklin & Marshall College, which he led in tripling its percentage of low-income students and doubling its percentage of domestic students of color. Prior to this, Porterfield was senior vice president for strategic development and an English professor at Georgetown University. Earlier in his career, he was a senior public affairs official at the US Department of Health and Human Services. Porterfield is a member of the Teach For America national board of directors and Education Trust board. A Rhodes Scholar, he was named a White House Champion of Change in 2016 and elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2020.
Previously
The challenges and opportunities of our times require creativity, agility, and purpose — from leaders and from institutions. How are some leaders of society’s most established...
As members of the Giving Pledge, Melanie and Richard Lundquist have given more than $400 million over the past decade to critical causes ranging from educational opportunity t...
The challenges and opportunities of our times require creativity, agility, and purpose — from leaders and from institutions. How are some leaders of society’s most established...
GM’s CSO reflects on the auto industry, Aspen Institute releases a wildfire roadmap, then the Secretary of Agriculture expands on fire resiliency and empowerment of rural comm...
A special program on food and water is on the menu. Two activists serve up veganism, a tech entrepreneur cuts water use in farming, a materials scientist pulls clean drinking...
It’s opening night! Miami Beach’s Mayor and the Aspen Institute’s CEO get things started. A meteorologist explores how scientific insight leads to public action, a chemist mak...
The twin ideals of open inquiry and free expression are core to the mission of any great university, but those are ideals that must be fought for—both historically and in the...
Leadership isn’t a fixed idea — done well, leadership evolves into what the world calls it to be. Right now, society needs ambitious leaders to tackle unbroken cycles of pover...
Join Carla Fredericks, CEO of the Christensen Fund and former director of the American Indian Law Clinic at University of Colorado Law School, and Peter Seligmann, founder and...
The Afternoon of Conversation is the Aspen Ideas Festival's pinnacle programming moment. Over 2,000 people gather in the Benedict Music Tent, an open-air venue with acoustics...
Herbert Bayer, a Bauhaus-trained artist and designer, settled in Aspen in 1946. Invited by Aspen Institute founder Walter Paepcke, Bayer’s legacy, spanning 30 years in Aspen,...
We’ll kick off the Festival with Big Ideas, followed by a dialogue on the implications of the Supreme Court’s decision overruling Roe v. Wade.
Higher education remains an indispensable launchpad for big ideas and cutting edge research - as well as a place for the next generation of leaders to explore their roles in t...
It’s opening night. NBC’s weather icon Al Roker shares his thoughts on this climate moment . Two leading thinkers lay out a blueprint for saving the planet. How we can cut the...
After over a year of disrupted learning, social isolation, and fear about returning to schools in person, Randi Weingarten, who heads the nation’s second-largest teacher’s uni...
Renowned cosmologist Brian Greene has spent a lifetime grappling with mind-bending theories and striving to understand the physical universe. And finally, he says, he was read...
The BBC defines civil society as a public space between the state, the market, and the ordinary household in which people can debate and tackle action. If a healthy civil soci...
How can business leaders use their acumen and resources to revitalize the communities of which they are a part? What can artists do to empower those who are trying to escape p...
The world faces many challenges—from climate change to political instability to widening inequality—that transcend borders and impact us all. If today’s young people are to be...
In a time of uncertainty, rapid change, and disruption, who is best positioned to move society forward? Many are losing faith not only in government, but in the institutions o...
In thinly populated regions that stretch over vast territories, primary care is often a long journey from home and specialty services may be completely out of reach. Access to...
Aspen Ideas: Health Engaging Local Issues Series: The Roaring Fork Valley isn’t meeting the demand for affordable housing, not only for low-income residents, but for household...
The University of Chicago has just announced new funding to expand access to a broader talent pool of well-deserving applicants, ending requirements to send in scores for ACT...
What is a university if not a true marketplace of ideas — a place where scholarly pursuits in history, science, literature, philosophy, art, and mathematics can be nurtured an...
The Aspen College Excellence Program aims to expand the number of excellent community colleges, to increase opportunity at elite colleges, and to strengthen the college presid...
The public’s opinion of institutions of higher learning is diminishing. Whether it is because of the high cost or perceived ivory-tower elitism, or due to worry about an overl...
Aspen Institute President Dan Porterfield and Festival Director Kitty Boone kick off the 2018 Aspen Ideas Festival. This session features conversations with Jeffrey Goldberg,...
College presents opportunities for students to test their wings, explore new relationships, pursue their personal best, and develop an enduring passion for learning. Often the...
Escalating costs of higher education are driving some colleges and universities to rethink their business models. Demographic changes are reshaping student populations. Job...