President, University of Oklahoma
David L. Boren, who has served Oklahoma as governor and U.S. senator, became the thirteenth president of the University of Oklahoma in November 1994. He is the first person in state history to have served in all three positions.
Boren is widely respected for his academic credentials, his longtime support of education, and for his distinguished political career as a reformer of the American political system. A graduate of Yale University in 1963, Boren majored in American history. He was selected as a Rhodes Scholar and earned a master’s degree in politics, philosophy and economics from Oxford University, England, in 1965. In 1968, he received a law degree from the University of Oklahoma College of Law.
As Oklahoma’s governor from 1974 through 1978, Boren promoted key educational initiatives that have had an enduring impact on Oklahoma. One of Boren’s most far-reaching projects in promoting quality education at all levels is the Oklahoma Foundation for Excellence, which he founded in 1985. During his time in the U.S. Senate from 1979 to 1994, Boren served on the Senate Finance and Agriculture Committees and was the longest-serving chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.
Under Boren’s leadership, the University of Oklahoma has developed and emerged as a “pacesetter university in American public higher education,” with 20 major new programs initiated since his inauguration. Above all, the Boren years have been marked by an emphasis on putting students first. There is not a university president in the country that is more committed to students as his number one priority.
Boren is married to Molly Shi Boren, a former judge and English teacher. A native of Seminole, Boren has two children, Carrie Christine Boren, an Episcopal minister, and David Daniel Boren, president of corporate development with the Chickasaw Nation. Devoting much of his life to public service, Boren drew from the example of his parents, the late Congressman Lyle H. Boren and Christine Boren.