Charles J. Ping is President Emeritus and Trustee Professor of Philosophy and Education of Ohio University. In addition, he is the co-director of the Manasseh Cutler Scholars Program, an endowed merit scholarship program, and director emeritus of the Charles J. Ping Institute for the Teaching of the Humanities.

He earned his doctoral degree from Duke University and completed postdoctoral work at Harvard University's Graduate School of Business Administration. Dr. Ping has taught philosophy on several campuses, was dean of a liberal arts college, and served as provost of a state university. His teaching specialties are nineteenth-century philosophy and, broadly, the history of philosophy, while his postdoctoral work in management has led to visiting professorships and numerous publications in the areas of labor relations, policy, and planning, particularly as they apply to universities.

As president of Ohio University for two decades (1975-1994), Dr. Ping sought to instill within the faculty, staff, and students a strong sense of community and consistently strove to attain the highest level of excellence in all that the University did. He emphasized the importance of a general education program for all students and the need to continually evaluate and reform university education; he also stressed the significance of international education in our global society.

He was a Fulbright Senior Research Scholar for Southern Africa and spent the first six months of 1995 in Namibia, Lesotho, and Botswana where he explored the role of the university in the less-developed country. Beginning in October 1995, Dr. Ping has served on the board of directors of the Council for International Exchange of Scholars, which administers the Fulbright Scholars Program, and chairs the committee that reviews and nominates candidates for appointments in Africa.

Dr. Ping also currently is a member of the Board of Directors of the Council on International Educational Exchange, a member of the Boards of Trustees of Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary and Muskingum College, and a member of the Board of Directors of the David C. Lam Institute for East-West Studies. He has served on a number of other advisory councils, commissions, and boards, including the Executive Committee and the International Division (chair) of NASULGC. He has been a frequent participant in conferences and seminars focusing on the internationalization of universities and served on the Kingdom of Swaziland's commission on planning for the future of higher education and on the presidential commission on higher education of Namibia.