Ed Bass named Corporation Senior Fellow

The Yale Corporation, the governing board of the University, has chosen Edward P. Bass as its next Senior Fellow. By the terms of the University’s charter, the Senior Fellow presides in the absence of the president, and also, with the president, is jointly responsible for setting the Corporation’s agenda and appointing its committees.

Bass, a 1967 graduate of Yale College and a trustee since 2001, will succeed Roland Betts, Chair of Chelsea Piers Management, Inc., who will retire from the Corporation on June 30, after having served on the board since 1999 and as Senior Fellow since 2004.

“Ed Bass is one of Yale’s most inspirational volunteer leaders,” said President Richard C. Levin.  “Through his service on the Corporation’s Buildings and Grounds Committee, he has contributed many important insights to the renovation of the campus and the design of new buildings. He has helped to conceive important academic initiatives in the study of the environment. And he has also been the most generous donor of his generation. All who love Yale should be delighted, as I am, that he is willing to serve as Senior Fellow for the last two years of his term on the Yale Corporation.”

Named a Successor Fellow in 2001, Bass has been active in business, conservation, and ranching. He is chairman and chief executive officer of Fine Line Inc., an investment and venture-capital management firm. A committed environmentalist, he serves on the executive committees of the New York Botanical Garden and the Botanical Research Institute of Texas, and is founding trustee of the Philecology Trust. He is a director emeritus of the World Wildlife Fund, on whose board he served from 1988 to 2007. He cofounded Biosphere 2 in Tucson, Arizona, and recently helped guide its transition to a major research center of the University of Arizona.

Bass has been a leader in the redevelopment of downtown Fort Worth in what has been recognized as one of the most successful urban revitalization efforts in America.

After graduating from Yale College, Bass studied at Yale School of Architecture from 1968 to 1970. His service to Yale includes co-chair of the Leadership Council of the School of Forestry & Environmental Studies, member and founding chair of the External Advisory Board of the Yale Institute for Biospheric Studies, former member of the University Council, and former chair of the University Council Committee on the Peabody Museum of Natural History. He is one of the co-chairs of the Yale Tomorrow Capital Campaign, which will conclude on June 30. He has been chair of the Corporation’s Committee on Development and Alumni Affairs for the last five years.