Marian Gade was a researcher and scholar at the Center for Studies in Higher Education (CSHE) from 1980 to her retirement in 2004. A Swarthmore graduate (‘56), she is an authority on university presidential roles, governance, academic university boards, trusteeship, public education coordination in the states, and related topics, and served as a board member of the American Association of Colleges and Universities (AAC&U). She worked closely with Clark Kerr, former President of the University of California, for thirty-five years on a variety of projects and publications beginning in the early years of the Carnegie Commission on Higher Education (founded in 1968) through the Carnegie Council on Policy Studies in Higher Education (founded in 1973) until it moved to to Princeton in 1980. Marian then joined CSHE where she continued to work with Clark Kerr as part of team consisting of herself, Maureen Kawaoka, and Sangwan Zimmerman co-authoring several books. In these years she also served as a consultant to presidential searches, advised university and accreditation boards and individual trustees. For the last two years of her employment, Marian served as Deputy Director of CSHE.
Marian has always been active in serving the organizations she is part of and assuming leadership roles. Currently she serves as Secretary of UCRAB and one of its representatives on the Retirement Center Advisory Board. She served five years as chair of the Council of University of California Retiree Associations (CUCRA) and was elected as one of two Honorary Members in 2018. She also has been active on Swarthmore Alumni Council and served as representative in California. For more than sixty years she has been deeply devoted to the national Girl Scouts of the United States of America (GSUSA) serving in several capacities in addition to her activities on behalf of AAC&U and other higher education organizations. Marian is active both organizationally and playing/singing music with the San Francisco Folk Music Club. Formerly a whitewater kayaker and kayaking trainer, her other long-time interests and activities include being a ham radio operator involved in west Contra Costa County emergency preparedness efforts.
Contributed by Anne MacLachlan