THE DIGITAL REPOSITORY FOR THE BLACK EXPERIENCE
"Apply the Appropriate Discount."
Academic administrator and economics professor Roberto “Bert” Ifill was born on April 12, 1954 in Brooklyn, New York to Eleanor Edmay Husbands and Rev. Oliver Urcille Ifill, Sr. He received his A.B. degree in economics in 1976 from Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire and his M.A. and M.Phil. degrees in 1979 and Ph.D. degree in 1992 in economics from Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut.
From 1983 to 1989, Ifill taught economics at Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts, where he also served as assistant dean and dean of freshmen. In 1989, he was hired by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation in New York City as a program associate for higher education and public affairs with particular responsibility for liberal arts colleges. In 1993, Ifill was hired as a program associate for academic planning and advising and as an associate dean at Connecticut College in New London, Connecticut, where he also taught economics and served as dean of planning and assistant to the president. In 1997, he was hired as special assistant to the president for diversity and campus community, assistant to the president and director of the council for multicultural affairs at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota, where he also taught economics. From 2001 to 2003, Ifill held a research fellowship at the American Council on Education, where he studied college savings plans and diversity initiatives for colleges and universities. In 2008, he was hired as a visiting professor at St. Mary’s College of Maryland in St. Mary’s City, Maryland, where he taught economics and served as interim dean of students from 2012 to 2014. From 2015 to 2017, Ifill served as an executive search consultant at the higher education search firm AGB Search in Washington, D.C. Ifill has drafted and facilitated strategic plans for several institutions including Connecticut College, the Lyman Allyn Art Museum, the Garde Arts Center, and others.
Ifill joined the board of trustees of Simmons University in 2021, where he has served as vice chair. He also has served on Simmons University’s Dean’s College Advisory Council of the Gwen Ifill College of Media, Arts, and Humanities, named after his late sister and noted PBS-TV journalist Gwen Ifill (1955-2016). Ifill also has chaired the boards of the Playwright’s Center and the Theatre Lab for the Dramatic Arts and served on the boards of the Greater Minneapolis Crisis Nursery, the Lyman Allyn Art Museum, Western Vocal Wind Ensemble, the Cantate Chamber Singers, and the Yale Glee Club Associates and as a member of Omicron Delta Kappa.
Ifill and his wife, Gisèle Becker, live in Silver Spring, Maryland.
Roberto “Bert” Ifill was interviewed by The HistoryMakers on May 11, 2022.