Thank You, Ed!

Lafayette celebrated the extensive contributions made by Ed Ahart ’69 in his many years of service to the College at a dinner in Buck Hall on Thursday night. Below are photos from the event and the citation for him that will appear in the program for Lafayette’s 183^rd Commencement on May 19.

EDWARD W. AHART, member of the Class of 1969, will step down as chair of the Board of Trustees July 1. A trustee since 1992, he will remain a member of the board.

Ahart’s record of service to Lafayette is long and distinguished. He succeeded Alan R. Griffith ’64 as board chair in 2010, after serving as secretary, and a member of the Steering Committee, since 2007. He chairs the Steering Committee, Executive Committee, and Committee on Compensation and is a member of the Committee on Trustees and Governance. A member of the Executive Committee since 2001, he previously chaired the Committee on Student Life and was vice chair of the Committee on Educational Policy and a member of the Committee on Easton.

Ahart presided over the installation of Alison R. Byerly as Lafayette’s 17th president and was a member of the search committee whose efforts culminated in the election of Daniel H. Weiss as 16th president. He is a member of the Executive Committee for the $400 million Live Connected, Lead Change campaign, the largest and most ambitious fundraising effort in Lafayette’s history.

He chaired the All-College Task Force on Alcohol and Substance Abuse, Alumni House Committee, and Subcommittee on Governance and Rules Compliance of the College’s NCAA Self-Study Committee. He was a member of the Trustees’ Special Committee on Information Technology.

Before becoming a trustee, Ahart served as president of the Alumni Association. The association honored him with its Joseph E. Bell ’28 Award for distinguished service. The College awarded him the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws at the 175th Commencement in 2010.

A Spanish major at Lafayette, Ahart holds a Juris Doctor degree from Cornell University Law School. He and his wife, Catherine Folk Ahart, were inducted into the Société d’Honneur in 2017. Their ties to Lafayette include daughters Amy ’97 and Alison ’03 and sons-in-law Thomas DiGiovanni ’96 and Shaw Williams ’03. The Ahart Family Arts Plaza at the Williams Arts Campus was dedicated in 2013. Ahart and his family also are benefactors of the Ahart Family Scholarship Fund.

Ahart is chairman of the law firm of Schenck, Price, Smith & King LLP and chairs its Corporate Practice Group. He was the firm’s managing partner and chaired the Management Committee for 20 years.