Jamie P. Merisotis

Jamie P. Merisotis
Jamie P. Merisotis, Dec. 2011
Alma mater	Bates College
Occupation	President and CEO, Lumina Foundation
Spouse(s)	Colleen T. O'Brienr

Jamie P. Merisotis is president and CEO of Lumina Foundation, America's largest private foundation committed solely to enrolling and graduating more students from college.^[1] Merisotis leads the Foundation’s $1.3 billion endowment and oversees all staff and strategic decision making. Lumina's goal is to ensure that, by 2025, 60 percent of Americans hold what it deems to be high-quality degrees, certificates and other credentials.^[2]

Life and career

Merisotis holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in political science from Bates College. Before joining Lumina in 2008, Merisotis was founding president of the Institute for Higher Education Policy,^[3] an independent, nonpartisan, education research and policy center.

Prior to founding IHEP, Merisotis served as executive director of the National Commission on Responsibilities for Financing Postsecondary Education, a bipartisan commission appointed by the U.S. president and congressional leaders. Merisotis also helped create the Corporation for National and Community Service (AmeriCorps), serving as an adviser to senior management on issues related to the quality and effectiveness of national service initiatives.

Merisotis’ work has been published extensively. He has written and edited several books and monographs and is a frequent contributor to magazines, journals and newspapers. He has served as a regular commentator on the award-winning PBS show Nightly Business Report, the most-watched business news program on television. His writing has appeared in The Washington Post, National Journal, Times Higher Education Supplement (London), The Chronicle of Higher Education, Huffington Post, Politico, Roll Call and numerous other print and online publications.

Merisotis is an experienced trustee and director for numerous organizations around the globe. He is a member of the board of trustees of Bates College in Lewiston, Maine, and chairs that board’s governance committee. He also serves on the board of Anatolia College^[4] in Thessaloniki, Greece, a bicultural institution that includes a college, a high school, and an elementary school. He serves on several Indiana-based boards and commissions, including the Central Indiana Corporate Partnership.

He also serves as trustee and investment committee chair for the Children's Museum of Indianapolis, the world’s largest children's museum. He is the immediate past president of the Economic Club of Indiana. Merisotis previously served as chairman of the board for Scholarship America, the nation’s largest private-sector scholarship and educational-support organization; as vice chairman of the board of directors for the Washington Internship Institute; and as a member of the executive committee of the London-based European Access Network.

Awards and recognition

Merisotis has received honorary degrees from several institutions including Western Governors University, Miami Dade College and Ivy Tech Community College. He received the Distinguished Young Alumni Award from Bates College in 2003 and was recognized for his support for community colleges in 2001 with the 2001 Community College Government Relations Award^[5] presented by the American Association of Community Colleges and the Association of Community College Trustees. Merisotis was a 2005 finalist for the Brock International Prize in Education,^[6] and in 1998 he was named by Change magazine as one of the emerging young leaders (under the age of 45) in American higher education.^[7]

References

External links

As of December 21, 2009, this article is derived in whole or in part from Lumina Foundation. The copyright holder has licensed the content in a manner that permits reuse under CC-By-SA 3.0 and GFDL. All relevant terms must be followed. The original text was at "Jamie P. Merisotis".