Nancy S. Dye was the 13th president of Oberlin College in Oberlin, Ohio. She was appointed President of Oberlin after having served as Acting President of Vassar College for several months in 1992.
Dye attended Vassar College as an undergraduate. She received her PhD from the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1974, and accepted a position at the University of Kentucky, where she taught from 1974 to 1988. In 1988, she accepted a position at Vassar, where she served as Dean of the Faculty as well as Professor of History. As a professional historian, she was the author of numerous articles and several books, and she served on the editorial board of The Journal of American History.[1]
On September 11, 2006, Nancy Dye announced her resignation as President of Oberlin College effective June 30, 2007. Dye oversaw the construction of new buildings, the increased selectiveness of the student body, and helped grow the endowment with the largest capital campaign in the college's history.[2] In honor of her commitment to internationalism, the board of Trustees announced the Nancy S. Dye chair for Middle Eastern and Islamic studies at Oberlin at commencement in May 2007.
Her resignation came after a period of transition for the College. Some were dissatisfied with Dye's communication with students and faculty, while others respected her ability to keep the College stable when other Colleges were suffering financially. Her most recent biannual review conducted by Robert Atwell was unreleased. Official reasons for the burial of the report are because of poor methodologies though many suspect that it was due to a largely negative review.[3] A 2009 article in the New York Times reported that Dye earned $1.4 million from Oberlin as its ex-president.[4]