SHANNON URTNOWSKI
News Editor
President Andrew K. Benton has been named chair of the Board of Directors for the American Council on Education (ACE), an organization that oversees higher education institutions around the nation.
Though he has been aware of the position for a few months, Benton assumed the role Monday while at ACE’s 90th annual meeting in San Diego.
Since early 2007, Benton has served as vice chair of ACE’s Board of Directors. He will spend the next year as chair, a decision by which Benton said he is very honored.
“I serve on a board of directors made up of wonderful people, and they were all prospective candidates to serve on the committee,” Benton said. “To be elected chair and emerge from that wonderful pool of colleagues and have this wonderful opportunity was of course a surprise — one of serendipity.”
Benton, who has been president of Pepperdine since 2000 and served in higher education for nearly 30 years, joined ACE’s Board of Directors in 2003, which he said has given him the opportunity to work closely with colleagues and tackle important issues.
“I can’t think of a more important segment that pulls all Americans together than higher education,” he said.
ACE works to improve access to higher education at all levels, while increasing affordability for higher education and ensuring that it will deliver on its promises.
Benton said he looks forward to the coming year, which will allow him to become even more involved with ACE and furthering its mission.
“To have this leadership opportunity is a very special privilege and even an honor,” Benton said.
As chair of the board, Benton will help plan the annual ACE conferences, which frequently take place in Washington D.C., choose board members, reach out to the organization’s 1,800 members and encourage ACE involvement among colleges and universities around the United States.
This will extend Benton’s already influential role at ACE, which has included chairing the search committee that selected ACE’s newly-named president, Molly Corbett Broad.
Benton is very deserving of his new position within ACE, according to Provost Darryl Tippens.
“It is a spectacular honor,” he said. “There are several thousand colleges and universities in America, and for our president to become the chair that represents the leading universities in the country is remarkable.”
The honor is one that shows well not only for Benton, but also for Pepperdine as a whole, according to Seaver College dean David Baird.
“The naming of President Benton as the chair of the board of ACE is verification of his stature in the higher education community across the United States,” Baird said in an e-mail. “His election is also a direct benefit to Pepperdine University, whose national reputation will be enhanced through his work with the United States Congress, the U.S. Department of Education, other governmental agencies and the presidents of some of the most prestigious universities in the nation.”
Pepperdine has been a member of ACE for more than 20 years, exemplifying the commitment to higher education it shares with Benton. This recognition has not gone unnoticed.
“He wouldn’t have been elected to this position if there was not a lot of respect for both the man and the university,” Tippens said.
Despite the recognition that comes with the title, Associate Vice President of Public Affairs Rick Gibson said Benton’s new position as chair of ACE’s Board of Directors is more than an honor.
“It is also an important role in one of the most vital institutions,” he said. “It is an institution that advocates for higher education within the classrooms of different colleges and universities.”
With his vast experience in higher education, shown especially by his commitment to Pepperdine, Gibson said Benton will serve his new position well.
“It is really an extension of his role here as president at Pepperdine,” he said.
02-14-2007
