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A native of Owensboro, Kentucky, Thomas C. Meredith is the Commissioner of Higher Education for the Board of Trustees of State Institutions of Higher Learning (IHL). He is responsible for administering the Board’s policies at the eight public universities in the state of Mississippi, which has a total enrollment of over 70,000 students and a budget totaling over $2.9 billion.
In January 2002, Meredith was appointed Chancellor for the Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia, responsible for the state’s 34 public colleges and universities. Prior to this appointment, Meredith served as Chancellor of the University of Alabama System.
Meredith served from 1988 to 1997 as president and professor of education at Western Kentucky University in Bowling Green. He joined that institution from The University of Mississippi, where, from 1984 to 1988, he served as vice chancellor for executive affairs, adjunct professor of higher education and executive assistant to the chancellor. Before that, Meredith served as an academic programs officer and as an associate director for programs and planning for the Mississippi Board of Trustees of State Institutions of Higher Learning from 1974 to 1984. He began his career as a high school teacher and later as a high school principal.
Meredith holds a bachelor of arts degree in social studies from Kentucky Wesleyan College, a master of arts degree in education administration and supervision from Western Kentucky University, and a doctor of education in administration and supervision with an emphasis in secondary and higher education from The University of Mississippi. He also completed the Institute for Educational Management at Harvard University and was a participant in the Higher Education Roundtable at Oxford University.
Meredith serves on numerous educational and corporate boards. He is president of the National Association of System Heads (NASH), an organization comprised of the chief executive officers of the 51 public higher education systems in the United States. He was also chair of the American Association of State Colleges and Universities (AASCU). When he took office in November 2003, he was the first head of a university system to serve as chair of AASCU. Meredith was appointed in 2002 to a three-year term on the Executive Committee of the Board of Control for the Southern Regional Educational Board (SREB).
While serving as chancellor in Alabama, Dr. Meredith was asked by Governor Don Siegelman to head the Alabama Commerce Commission, a group charged with drafting, implementing and monitoring a long-term economic development plan for the state. Meredith was also initiated into the Alabama Academy of Honor, an organization of only 100 outstanding Alabamians.
The Commissioner and his wife, Susan, have two sons. Mark is serving a fellowship in pediatric emergency medicine at Vanderbilt Children’s Hospital, and Matthew is practicing law in Dallas, Texas. |
