Honorary Degree Recipient John Bradford Tillson Jr. '66

B.A. Denison University

Recognized by Denison University with the
Doctor of Humane Letters, honoris causa

by Fleur W. Metzger
Denison University Publications Editor

Brad Tillson, former president and CEO of Cox Ohio Publishing, has had a distinguished career in journalism and a lifelong dedication to community service in Dayton, Ohio, the city where he has lived since 1971.

A native of Paris, Texas, he graduated from The Loomis School in Windsor, Conn., in 1962 before enrolling at Denison. During his college years, Tillson was an English major and editor of Denison's student newspaper, The Denisonian. He earned a bachelor of arts degree on June 13,1966, and entered the U.S. Navy the following August where he served as a junior communications officer until September 1969, including three tours on aircraft carriers in the Vietnam war zone.

Following military service, he worked as a reporter for the Charlotte (N.C.) News, covering medicine and city government. In September 1971, he joined the Dayton Daily News, reporting on county and city government and special projects before moving to the newspaper's Columbus Bureau where he covered state government and state and national politics. Tillson was named assistant city editor in January 1977 and later was promoted to city editor, assistant managing editor, managing editor and, in September 1984, editor. In June 1988, he became publisher.

Born in San Antonio, Texas, Hurtado earned an A.B. in Sociology from Princeton University in 1980 and was certified to teach both Spanish and social studies in the State of New Jersey. She continued her education at Harvard University, earning an Ed.M. in Administration, Planning and Social Policy in 1983 and a Ph.D. in Education from the Graduate School of Education at UCLA in 1990.

Black Issues in Higher Education named Hurtado among the top 15 influential faculty who personify scholarship, service and integrity and whose work has had substantial impact on the academy. Her other honors include the Harold R. Johnson Diversity Award, 1998, University of Michigan; the Distinguished Early Career Award, 1995-96, Association for the Study of Higher Education; and the Evan and Helen Geib Pattishall Junior Faculty Research Award, 1994, University of Michigan School of Education.

Hurtado was on the board of the American Association of Higher Education from 1996 to 2000 and currently serves on the Research and Evaluation Advisory Board of the Gates Millenium Scholarship Program. She was president of Association for the Study of Higher Education in 2004-05. She has served on numerous editorial advisory boards and has been a keynote speaker at lecture series and conferences throughout the United States and in South Africa. Hurtado was a convocation speaker at Denison in February of this year, presenting "Linking Diversity with the Educational and Civic Mission of the Institution."