![President Joan Hinde Stewart](https://www.hamilton.edu/assets/mmlibrary/images/185x/stewart040SM1.jpg)
Hamilton President Joan Hinde Stewart was among participants in the Association of Yale Alumni annual assembly on Nov. 17. Stewart, who received her Ph.D. from Yale in 1970, was a panelist on “Doctorates Without Borders,” a discussion of the challenges facing graduate school alumni in the 21st century and leadership opportunities within and beyond academia for Ph.D. degree recipients.
During the panel discussion Stewart remarked, “I will never stop believing that the best preparation for any way of life is the study of literature or any of the other choices a liberal education offers.”
Other panelists included former Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo, and Jonathan Fanton, former president of the MacArthur Foundation.
Yale became the first university in North America to grant a Ph.D. in 1861. The assembly brought more than 400 alumni leaders to campus, representing regional Yale clubs, college classes, graduate and professional school alumni, and shared-interest groups.