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websiteSource: Department of Health, Education and Welfare Biographical Sketch - August 1975
Dr. David Mathews was sworn into office as the Nation's 11th Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare on August 8, 1975. He was nominated for the post by President Ford on June 26, 1975, and confirmed by the Senate on July 22, 1975.
He came to Washington from Tuscaloosa, Alabama, where he was president of The University of Alabama.
As Secretary, Dr. Mathews heads a Department of 129,000 employees and is responsible for the operation of more than 350 programs and the expenditure of about one-third of the total Federal budget.
When Dr. Mathews assumed the presidency of The University of Alabama in the fall of 1969 at 33, he was the youngest man ever to hold that position. However, he has been deeply involved with the University for more than 20 years-as a student, dean of men, history teacher, vice president and president. He has probably seen the University from as many perspectives as anyone in its history.
A native Alabamian, he was born in Grove Hill, December 6, 1935. Secretary Mathews returned to his alma mater in 1960 after military service and again in 1965 after taking his doctorate in the history of American education at Columbia. As he has advanced through the ranks, he has continued to teach American history and to write in the fields of his special interest, Southern history and American higher education. He has written for or has been written about in publications ranging from the Educational Record and the Alabama Historical Review to Southern Living and Saturday Review.
His leadership at the University has sought to translate the personal concern for students into programs. A prime example is the student internship project which has involved hundreds of students in working for the University and learning from direct contact with its operations. During Dr. Mathews' tenure the University has established such other new divisions as the New College, the Computer Honors Program, and the Interim Session, all of which are designed to help improve the learning opportunities for students.
Dr. Mathews has had a special interest in the problems of the State and region and the responsibility of the University for aiding in sound public, policy development. He has used his service on the Southern Regional Education Board, the Southern Growth Policies Board, the State Oil and Gas Board, the Birmingham Federal Reserve Board, and the Alabama Council on the Humanities to work with the University faculty to help bring their knowledge to bear on the critical issues facing the public. The University has also tried to be responsive through the creation of such agencies as the College of Community Health Sciences (for improving rural health care delivery), the Law Center for legal research into public policy matters), and the Field Services Office (for community level contact with University research and service bureau).
Dr. Mathews has been asked to serve as a member of the board of the Charles F. Kettering Foundation, as an advisor to the Secretary of the Army on ROTC Affairs, as a member of the board of directors to the Academy for Educational Development, as a trustee of Judson College, and, since 1969, as State chairman of the March of Dimes. He has been particularly active in the formation of the Alabama Consortium for the Development of Higher Education, which is a voluntary association for joint efforts by a group of the State's public and private institutions. And in 1975, Dr. Mathews was appointed by President Ford to the Advisory Council for the American Revolution Bicentennial Administration.
At the University, the student/faculty awards committee presented him with the Algernon Sidney Sullivan Award, the only President to ever have received that honor. Other honors include memberships in Phi Beta Kappa and the Alabama Academy of Honor, selection for the State's citizen of the year award for 1975 by Alabama's Exchange Clubs, and selection by the Jaycees as one of the Nation's ten Outstanding Young Men in 1969.
Dr. Mathews is married to the former Mary Chapman of Grove Hill. They have two daughters.
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Last Updated: Tuesday, July 14, 1998