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Department
Leadership, Policy and Organizations
Office Location
202 Peabody Administration Building
Mailing Address
329 GPC
230 Appleton Place
Nashville, TN 37203-5721
Direct Phone
615-322-6491
Fax Number
615-322-8501
Email Address
Michael K. McLendon
Associate Dean and Chief of Staff, Associate Professor of Public Policy and Higher Education
Ph.D., University of Michigan, 2000
Joined faculty in 1999
Short Biography
Michael McLendon is Associate Dean and Chief of Staff and Associate Professor of Public Policy and Higher Education at Peabody College, Vanderbilt University. He also directs the Program in Higher Education Leadership and Policy.
Professor McLendon concentrates his research and teaching on public governance and finance of higher education. Much of his scholarship focuses on the role of political institutions and post secondary governance structures in shaping policy outcomes at both the state and campus levels.
His recent research includes studies of (1) the factors associated with state appropriations and tuition setting in public higher education, (2) the origins and spread of certain accountability and financing reforms for higher education, and (3) the relationship between state political systems and post secondary policy innovation.
McLendon's research has appeared in The Journal of Higher Education, Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, Research in Higher Education, Review of Higher Education, American Journal of Education, Teachers' College Record, Journal of Education Finance, Educational Policy, Higher Education: Handbook of Theory and Research, and as chapters in numerous books.
He teaches graduate courses on state politics, policy, and organization of higher education.
Currently, Professor McLendon serves as co-principal investigator (with Professors Will Doyle and John Braxton) on a national study funded by the Lumina Foundation that has investigated the impact of state policies on college-student retention, graduation, and success. McLendon consults with national policy organizations, state governmental agencies, governors, and legislatures. McLendon serves as an associate editor for Higher Education: Handbook of Theory and Research and as consulting editor for Research in Higher Education and Review of Higher Education. He is a former co-editor of the Politics of Education Yearbook.
At Vanderbilt, he has chaired the academic policies committees of the University Senate and the Peabody Faculty Council.
Professor McLendon holds a Ph.D. in Higher Education Policy from the University of Michigan. Prior to undertaking his doctoral studies, he served as a policy analyst on the Higher Education Committee of the Florida House of Representatives and on the staff of U.S. Senator David Pryor, in Washington, D.C.