Awards

Bicentennial Medal - 2019

President's Medal for Excellence - 2018

Retirement Celebration

About David Zaret

David Zaret served as Indiana University's vice president for international affairs, a position he held since 2011. Zaret was responsible for IU's international activities, including advancing the university's global reputation and creating international opportunities for IU students and faculty as well as Indiana citizens and businesses. With nearly 9,000 international students enrolled at IU campuses in 2017, Zaret oversaw one of the largest international enrollments in the United States.

Zaret was also the Manager and Chief Executive Officer of IU International Consulting and Research, LLC, and a professor in the Department of Sociology at IU Bloomington with an adjunct appointment in the Department of History.

Prior to his position as vice president for international affairs, Zaret served as executive associate dean of the IU College of Arts and Sciences from 1999 to 2005, and as interim dean of the College in 2006 and again in 2010 - 11. He has held positions as senior advisor to the Provost and director of undergraduate and graduate studies for the Department of Sociology. Zaret joined the IU faculty in 1977.

A globally minded leader, Zaret lived and studied abroad both as a student and as a member of the IU faculty. He received a doctor of philosophy degree from the University of Oxford and held visiting appointments at Oxford and Heidelberg University in Germany. Zaret graduated magna cum laude with a bachelor's degree in sociology from Amherst College, near his native New York.

Zaret is an award-winning scholar whose own field of research has focused on major global themes. His interests are in historical sociology, comparative history and social theory, and his published research includes the books Origins of Democratic Culture (Princeton University Press, 2000) and The Heavenly Contract: Ideology and Organization in Pre-Revolutionary Puritanism (University of Chicago Press, 1985).

He has been an active reviewer with the National Endowment for the Humanities and has served on the editorial boards for the American Journal of Sociology, American Sociological Review, Studies in Historical Social Change, and History of Sociology. Among Zaret's honors and awards are fellowships and grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Council of Learned Societies and the Lilly Foundation, in addition to several departmental and campus teaching awards.