Following the historic merger of Wheelock College with BU’s School of Education in 2018, David Chard was interim dean of the BU Wheelock College of Education & Human Development. He had previously been Wheelock College president. He became permanent dean of the renamed school in 2021 and will leave his leadership role at the conclusion of the 2023-2024 academic year.

University News

Wheelock’s David Chard Leaving as Dean, Proud of Faculty and Staff Who Built Something Together

He is credited with guiding the school through an historic merger with the University’s School of Education in 2018

David Chard says he planned to serve as dean for only two years after the historic 2018 merger of Wheelock College and BU’s School of Education—the allotment agreed to by the two institutions at the time. But as his time leading the newly formed Wheelock College of Education & Human Development began to draw to a close, Chard says, he realized he had more work to do in the role, including shepherding the college’s strategic planning process and continuing the school’s transformation into an elite research institution.

So Chard, then the interim dean, applied to stay in the job as permanent dean. In 2021, he was appointed permanent dean, and in the two years since, he says, has done what he stayed on to do. “In some ways, I wanted to get the college into a position that would be very attractive for the next dean to want to be here,” he says. “I feel like I’ve accomplished almost everything I wanted to accomplish.”

Chard will step down from his leadership position at Wheelock at the conclusion of the 2023-2024 academic year, the provost’s office announced last week.

Among his many accomplishments are increasing the college’s student and faculty diversity, growing its graduate enrollment, expanding research funding, and raising the institution’s international profile through programming in locations like Lesotho and Bahrain. He created high-profile named professorships focused in the areas of early childhood well-being and education innovation and hired new faculty members who are internationally renowned in their fields—most recently Anthony Jack, a Wheelock associate professor of higher education leadership and inaugural faculty director of the Newbury Center.

But it was the successful 2018 merger of two established educational institutions that may be Chard’s longest lasting legacy. He shepherded a merger that resulted in the closure of historic Wheelock College, where he’d been president from 2016 to 2018. He then led faculty from both institutions in setting the strategy and vision of the newly formed college, and in 2021 the school published a strategic plan that centers on social justice and the transformation of systems that govern human development and education.

“Higher education is not familiar with mergers and acquisitions,” Chard says. “This is not who we are, so I’m proud that different groups of faculty and staff came together to build something together. We’ve seen tremendous progress, and that was not a foregone conclusion. A lot of mergers don’t work, and this has worked for our students, our staff, and our faculty in many dimensions. I would not take credit for it, in its entirety. I think it was a team effort.”

In a memo sent to BU faculty and staff, Kenneth Lutchen, interim provost and chief academic officer, was effusive in his praise of Chard’s leadership of BU Wheelock.

“Five years after the merger, Wheelock is a strengthened and competitive college, with nationally respected programs that consistently turn out talented and accomplished teachers, school leaders, child mental health professionals, policymakers, and researchers,” Lutchen wrote. “Dean Chard’s strategic vision, experienced leadership, and collaborative approach have been essential to this, and we thank him for his service.”

A dean search advisory committee, comprising faculty from Wheelock and other BU colleges, will be convened, and a national search will begin to choose Chard’s successor, Lutchen wrote.

Chard says he is grateful for the colleagues and culture he’s found at BU, and he looks forward to spending more time with his grandson in Austin, Tex., and at the Provincetown home he shares with his husband.

“I think a lot of the pieces are in place for a leader to come in and work with our faculty and staff to really propel the college forward in terms of its national and international reputation, prominence as a generator of knowledge, as well as a place to become a professional,” Chard says. It will be a college “that is unapologetically focused on social justice and equity, which in today’s world is not a small issue.”