Michael K McLendon | Baylor University (original) (raw)

Michael K. McLendon is a prominent researcher, an award-winning teacher and an accomplished campus leader, with deep experience in helping institutions build capacity for growth and improvement. Named as one of the foremost academics in the U.S. whose research contributes to public debates around education, Dr. McLendon consults with campuses, public agencies, governors and non-profit organizations on issues ranging from institutional effectiveness to strategies for revenue growth and student success. As a campus leader, he holds a highly successful record in philanthropy, curriculum innovation and talent formation.

In 2017-2018, Dr. McLendon served as interim provost of Baylor University following a period of deep institutional crisis that had seen the departures – in 15 months – of two presidents and three successive provosts. In addition to overseeing Baylor’s 1,000 faculty, 12 colleges and a budget of $400 million, McLendon led the formation of the university’s inaugural academic strategic plan. The plan he and his team developed entailed large increases both in faculty hiring and investment in academic infrastructure, in accelerated pursuit by the university of “R1” university status. Developed collaboratively with academic leaders, donors and the Board, the plan articulated five areas for growth: health and medical education; data sciences; materials sciences; human flourishing and a focus both on Latin America and U.S. Latino/Hispanic communities. The Board, which, along with the president, effusively praised McLendon’s leadership, unanimously adopted the plan.

Under his leadership, the university saw sharp gains in the hiring of underrepresented faculty, undertook development of more equitable faculty promotion processes and created an academic unit focusing on revenue increases through growth in graduate professional education.

Previously, as the university’s education school dean, McLendon acquired a record number of new faculty positions for his school, introduced flexibility and revenue-growth measures to benefit faculty and secured historic gifts that today anchor the institution’s $1-billion capital campaign.

From 2012-2015, McLendon held the Harold and Annette Simmons Centennial Endowed Chair and served as academic associate dean at Southern Methodist University’s Simmons School of Education and Human Development. During his three years as associate dean, the school witnessed extraordinary growth in the number of its tenure-line faculty, in its research expenditures, in the number of its academic programs and in the number of its students enrolled in graduate professional education.

Dr. McLendon spent the bulk of his career at Vanderbilt University where, from 1999-2012, he served as a professor of public policy and higher education and, from 2008-2011, held the role of executive associate dean and chief of staff at the nation’s top-ranked school of education, the Peabody College of Education and Human Development. In this role McLendon directed strategic initiatives, oversaw undergraduate education, led in the development of innovative degree offerings and shepherded the building of stronger relationships between Peabody and school districts and state agencies. He also directed highly-regarded, multi-disciplinary programs in public policy, leadership studies and higher education.

McLendon’s scholarship centers around public policy for higher education, particularly as it relates to governance, finance and politics. Much of his research is directed toward understanding factors that influence policy change in the states. He has examined the sources of variation over time in state funding for higher education, the role of state policy in promoting college access and success, the factors influencing the rise of new accountability and financing policies in higher education and the ways in which legislative design shapes public policies for higher education in the states.

His research introduced into the field of higher-education studies the use of event history analysis as a tool for studying, longitudinally, patterns in policy innovation for postsecondary education both within and among states. Studies on this and on the other lines of his work have appeared in Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, the Journal of Higher Education, Research in Higher Education, The Review of Higher Education, the ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Teachers College Record, Educational Policy, Higher Education: Handbook of Theory and Research, and elsewhere.

A native South Texan, McLendon has long been interested in governmental policies and campus practices that promote the postsecondary education success of Latinos, an area in which he has published and led university initiatives that built capacity for research and outreach.

Dr. McLendon earned his Ph.D. from the University of Michigan, where he studied public policy, organization behavior and higher education.

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