David S. Spence selected to be president of the Southern Regional Education Board

Dave Spence's career has included several state-level leadership positions in SREB states, and he was a member of the SREB staff on two occasions, including service as vice president for educational policies in the mid-1980s. He has been executive director of the Florida Postsecondary Education Planning Commission, executive vice chancellor for the University System of Georgia, and executive vice chancellor and vice chancellor for academic programs at the State University System of Florida. For the past six years, Dr. Spence has been executive vice chancellor and chief academic officer of the California State University System (which enrolled 408,000 students in 2003-2004).

A graduate of the University of Rochester, he earned his doctoral degree in higher education from SUNY/Buffalo. In his earliest work in education, he was involved in a number of programs to provide opportunities for low-income and minority students to prepare for and attend college. At SREB, he dealt with research and worked directly with the SREB Commission for Educational Quality to develop the South’s first formal goals for improving education in 1988. The SREB Goals for Education were a model for President George H. W. Bush and the nation’s governors when they met a year later in Charlottesville, Virginia, to establish national education goals.

In his present position, Dr. Spence has helped California public schools and the California State University System develop courses for high school seniors and a college-readiness assessment. This nationally recognized work to improve readiness for college and access to college is closely related to key parts of SREB's current Challenge to Lead Goals for Education, which define the SREB program agenda. The Challenge to Lead goals are an extension of the earlier SREB goals that Dave Spence worked with SREB states to develop more than a decade ago. He has enthusiastically endorsed the Challenge to Lead agenda set by the SREB Board.

Dr. Spence will be meeting with SREB staff in coming months and will participate in the 2005 joint meeting of the SREB Board and Legislative Work Conference in June in New Orleans.

Dave Spence and his wife, Marie, have adult children and other family members in several SREB states. His selection as SREB president is both a new professional leadership opportunity and a personal homecoming.

The Southern Regional Education Board, headquartered in Atlanta, was created in 1948 by Southern governors and legislatures to help leaders in education and government work cooperatively to advance education and improve the social and economic life of the region. SREB has 16 member states: Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia and West Virginia. Each state is represented by its governor and four gubernatorial appointees.

Press photo is available here.