This article lists the current and past presidents of Ohio Wesleyan University in Delaware, Ohio. The president of Ohio Wesleyan University is the institution's chief administrator and ex officio chair of the Board of Trustees. He is appointed by and is responsible to the other members of the Board, who delegate to him the day-to-day running of the university. Since Wesleyan's beginning, just 15 men have held the title of Ohio Wesleyan University president, while a few have served as interim president. Those who have held the office include lawyers, literary scholars, politicians, businessmen and clergymen. Mark Huddleston was named university president following a meeting of the Ohio Wesleyan Board of Trustees on Saturday morning, June 12, 2004. He succeeded Thomas Courtice, who held office for 10 years before retiring that year. Huddleston's academic specialty is public administration, a field in which he has published widely, focusing on the senior federal career service and a variety of international issues. History The service of Ohio Wesleyan's presidents to the college spans nearly 170 years now. About a quarter of them, in the beginning of the college's history, were appointed by the Methodist church. Early in the beginning of the 20th century that link was severed and the appointment of Arthur Flemming marked the beginning of independent appointment to the position of presidency of the college. The Thomson Era The first president Edward Thomson, one of the two founders of the university in 1842. His father, a druggist, influenced Edward toward the study of medicine, which he pursued at the University of Pennsylvania. He retained the post of the presidency until 1860. Thomson was a vocal clergyman and a defender of the rights of women to co-education, on equal terms with men, and engaged in antislavery activity at that time, including many acts of civil disobedience. On August 5, 1846, Thomson delivered his inaugural address. He maintained that the college was a product of the liberality of the people of Delaware and that it was fortunate that Ohio Wesleyan was founded in a community divided in religious and political opinions because the friction of a mixed society prevented dogmatism and developed energy and pointed out that the spirit of the college is the spirit of liberty. Accounts of Thomson focus on his scholarly work and his firm anti-slavery social stance. By the end of the presidency, Thomson had written three books on