Board of Trustees

James L. Applegate

Communications Committee

Dr. Applegate’s career in higher education and philanthropy focuses on developing policies and practices to dramatically increase college success, especially for underserved groups. He currently is a visiting university professor in the Center for the Study of Education Policy at Illinois State University.

He served as senior academic advisor for Navitas developing strategies to support the internationalization of U.S. higher education. He was the executive director for the Illinois Board of Higher Education. As Illinois’ state higher education executive officer, Jim led a $2 billion higher education enterprise and efforts to dramatically increase college attainment, improve college affordability, and close opportunity gaps in Illinois. Jim also served as senior vice president and head of grant making for the Lumina Foundation, one of the largest and most influential higher education funders in the nation. There he led development of new approaches to support increased degree production, fairness and productivity in higher education. Jim was chief academic officer for the state of Kentucky. During his tenure Kentucky led the nation in higher education attainment increases.

Jim served as president of the National Communication Association, the world’s largest association of communication scholars. He was a professor and department chair at the University of Kentucky for 20 years, also serving as the elected University Senate Chair. He was an American Council on Education Fellow. He serves on boards and advisory groups with numerous higher education organizations. He was a university fellow and received his Ph.D. from the University of Illinois. His research received numerous awards for outstanding contributions to his discipline. He has been honored by national and state organizations for his leadership and commitment to improving higher education equity and performance.