Edward B. Fort, chancellor emeritus of North Carolina A&T State University, passed away on August 9. He was 94 years old.
Dr. Fort earned his bachelor’s degree in history and his master’s degree in educational administration from Wayne State University in his hometown of Detroit. Later in life, he earned his doctorate in educational administration and finance from the University of California, Berkeley.
While serving as a curriculum coordinator for Detroit Public Schools in the 1960s, Dr. Fort held teaching positions with the University of Michigan, the University of Michigan-Dearborn, and Michigan State University. In 1967, he was appointed superintendent of the Inkster Michigan Public School System. Four years later, he became superintendent of Sacramento, California’s City Unified School District. In 1974, Dr. Fort transitioned into higher education administration, serving seven years as chancellor of the University of Wisconsin Colleges.
Dr. Fort was named the eighth chancellor of North Carolina A&T State University in 1982 and served in that capacity for the next 17 years. Under Dr. Fort’s leadership, the HBCU added more than 30 new academic programs and awarded its first doctoral degrees in mechanical and electrical engineering. Among other accomplishments, the university also completed more than $50 million in new constructions, completed more than $30 million in renovations, and established a $9 million research center. In 1999, two months before Dr. Fort concluded his chancellorship, the center was dedicated as the Edward B. Fort Interdisciplinary Research Center. After stepping down from his leadership role, Dr. Fort remained on the the university’s faculty as a professor in the department of leadership studies and adult education until June 2023.
Throughout his career, Dr. Fort consulted with numerous educational bodies and was selected for several prestigious advisory positions at both state and national levels. In 1991, President George H.W. Bush appointed Dr. Fort to the first President’s Board of Advisors on Historically Black Colleges and Universities. That same year, NASA Administrator Admiral Richard Truly appointed Dr. Fort to the NASA Advisory Council, making him the council’s first Black member. In 1993, President Clinton selected Dr. Fort for membership on the NASA Blue Ribbon Commission on the Redesign of the International Space Station. One year later, U.S. Secretary of Education Richard Riley appointed Dr. Fort to the Historically Black Colleges and Universities Capital Financing Advisory Board.
“Dr. Fort played an invaluable role in the development of North Carolina A&T, laying our essential foundation as a research university and making possible so much of who and what we are today,” said Chancellor James R. Martin II. “The great Sir Isaac Newton once wrote, ‘If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.’ Dr. Fort’s shoulders were broad, and from them we saw a future that he first envisioned and that we now work daily to make reality. We are grateful, indeed, that A&T was so large a part of his life’s work.”
