Ralph Hexter

Ralph Jay Hexter (born 1952) is a distinguished professor emeritus of classics and comparative literature at the University of California, Davis. as well as professor emeritus of classics and comparative literature at UC Berkeley. Previously, he served as the fifth president of Hampshire College.

Education Hexter received an A.B. in English literature magna cum laude from Harvard College in 1974. He was elected to Phi Betta Kappa in the fall of 1972 and in his senior year won both the Le Baron Russell Briggs Honors Thesis Prize and the First Bowdoin Prize (English Essay). He received a Knox Fellowship for study in Great Britain. He earned a B.A. and M.A. in classics and modern languages at Corpus Christi College, Oxford in 1977 and 1982, respectively. He also earned an M.Phil. and a Ph.D. in comparative literature from Yale University in 1979 and 1982, respectively. From 1979 to 1981, recipient of a fellowship from the DAAD, he was enrolled in the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität in Munich, Germany.

Career Hexter was an assistant and then associate professor of classics at Yale from 1981 to 1991. From 1991 to 1995 Hexter was professor of classics and comparative literature at the University of Colorado at Boulder, where he also directed the graduate program in comparative literature. Moving to the University of California, Berkeley in January, 1996, from March, 1996 he chaired the department of comparative literature. From September, 1996 to August, 1998, he chaired the editorial board of the journal Classical Antiquity. Effective July 1, 1998 he was Dean of Arts and Humanities and (from July 1, 2002) concurrently Executive Dean of the College of Letters and Science.

Hexter served as President of Hampshire College from August 1, 2005 through December 31, 2010. Until its closure in 2026 , Hampshire College, located in Amherst, Massachusetts, was the youngest member of the Five College Consortium.

Returning to California, Hexter served as provost and executive vice chancellor of the University of California, Davis, effective January 1, 2001. During this time, Hexter served first as acting chancellor (April 28 to September 14, 2016) and then interim chancellor (September 15, 2016 to July 31, 2017).

On July 1, 2020, he stepped down from his position as provost and returned to his position as a distinguished professor of classics and comparative literature, from which he retired on June 30, 2025.

Hexter was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2016.

Hexter has been involved with the Association of Independent Colleges and Universities in Massachusetts, Phi Beta Kappa, the Society for Classical Studies (formerly the American Philological Association), and the National Conference for Community and Justice. Since 2023 Hexter has been a commissioner of the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges (ACCJC) and serves as a trustee on the board of Cal Performances.

Personal life Hexter has been out as a gay man since his undergraduate years. He was among the founding members of LGBTQ Presidents (now Leaders) in Higher Education. Hexter met his longtime partner, Manfred Kollmeier, in Munich in December, 1979. They married in Massachusetts in 2007. Kollmeier passed away in 2024 at the age of 77, survived by their son Stefan, his wife Bettina, and grandson Louis. In his husband's memory, Hexter endowed the Global Aggies Award for LGBTQIA+ Rights that they had established at UC Davis.