Excellence Award
Dr. Debra Wehrle Stewart, Arts ’65
Raleigh, N.C.
A leader in higher education policy, Dr. Debra Stewart relishes “the privilege of contributing to questions that matter.” She currently is a senior fellow at the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago, where she studies how U.S. graduate schools are integrating artificial intelligence across operations. “AI has genuine potential to enhance the graduate experience, but it also carries risks that could diminish it,” she says.
Debra’s decision to attend Marquette was “a defining moment of my life,” she says. Guided by her high school mentor, Sister M. Georgine, SSJ, Grad ’56, Debra arrived on campus as a theater major in the fall of 1961. But she was unsettled to encounter the novel and diverse views expressed by her fellow students and professors and the reality that “I didn’t have the theatrical talent I thought I had,” she recalls.
“A great university education is one that pushes you far outside of your comfort zone, forces you to examine previously unexamined values and assumptions and teaches you tolerance — especially tolerance of viewpoint diversity,” she says. “Marquette did all that and more for me.”
She decided to study political science and philosophy, went on to graduate school and pursued a career that included roles as the dean of the graduate school at North Carolina State University and president of the Council of Graduate Schools.
“I am deeply honored by this recognition from the university that shaped me so profoundly,” she says. “Marquette gave me the intellectual tools and moral foundation that have guided my entire career — the belief that rigorous thinking combined with a commitment to action can genuinely make the world better.”
In 1962, as a sophomore at Marquette, Debra danced with Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson at the National Cherry Blossom Ball in Washington, D.C.
Name someone (past or present) with whom you'd like to have dinner.
I would love to host a dinner party with three remarkable women from the past: Mother Teresa, Simone de Beauvoir and Eleanor Roosevelt. If I could add one more guest, it would be my daughter, Cynthia — the living woman I most admire.
