Harvard, 1987
• 1987 First Team Academic All-America®
Arne Duncan was inducted into the CoSIDA Academic All-America® Hall of Fame in 2012.
Arne Duncan grew up with a strong background in education and public service—his father was a professor at the University of Chicago, and his mother started the Sue Duncan Children's Center, where Duncan spent much of his youth playing with and tutoring children of low-income families.
In his senior year at Harvard, Duncan was the varsity basketball co-captain and leading scorer, with an average of 16.9 points per game. He took a year off from his classes to return to his mother's tutoring center, where he helped children and wrote his senior thesis about his experiences there. He was awarded Academic All-America® status and graduated magna cum laude with a degree in sociology in 1987.
Duncan then played professional basketball for four years, mostly in Australia's National Basketball League, while also helping children as a government social worker. He returned to his hometown of Chicago in 1992 to pursue a career in education, heading the Ariel Education Initiative, a nonprofit student mentoring program. In 1999, Duncan was appointed Deputy Chief of Staff of Chicago Public Schools. Two years later, he was promoted to CEO by Mayor Richard M. Daley -- a position he held until he was chosen by President Barack Obama to serve as US Secretary of Education.
Born: Chicago, Ill.
High School: University of Chicago Laboratory Schools
Occupation: United States Secretary of Education