Incoming board chair Nido Qubein thanks outgoing chair Kenneth Peacock at the 2014 PACE Conference.
Dr. Nido Qubein, president of High Point University, has been elected to serve as the new chair of the North Carolina Campus Compact executive board. Qubein will begin a three-year term in July. The board is made up of presidents and chancellors from the nearly 40 colleges and universities that are part of the statewide network.
North Carolina Campus Compact elects a chair who has not only contributed greatly to higher education, but has placed a focus on service at an institution of higher education and in their own lives.
Qubein will be the third member president to hold the post. Elon University President Leo Lambert became the first board chair when the state organization was founded in 2002. In 2008, Appalachian State University Chancellor Kenneth Peacock assumed leadership of the board. Peacock will step down this summer.
Qubein became president of High Point University in 2005 and has since transformed HPU’s academic programs and facilities. Since he began his tenure at HPU, undergraduate enrollment has more than tripled, and many new academic initiatives such as the Service Learning program have been launched at HPU. Through this program and numerous other service endeavors, the HPU family contributes more than 100,000 hours of service to the community each year.
A successful entrepreneur and philanthropist, Qubein tells students in his President’s Seminar for freshmen and seniors to focus the efforts of their lives in three areas: one-third on learning, one-third on earning, and one-third on serving. Amidst his successful career, he dedicated time to serve as a director or chairman of many organizations including YMCA of the USA, which oversees 2,600 YMCA’s across the country, the High Point Chamber of Commerce, the United Way of Greater High Point, and the High Point Community Foundation.
“I have observed and admired President Qubein,” says Peacock. “His vision and transformational leadership will make an invaluable difference for our state’s Compact, an organization that positively impacts the lives of so many people.”
NC Campus Compact is one of 34 state affiliates of national Campus Compact, headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts. The national organization was created in 1985 by the presidents of Brown, Georgetown and Stanford Universities and the president of the Education Commission of the States. Campus Compact now has 1,200 member presidents and chancellors nationwide.
Presidents and Chancellors that join the Compact commit their institutions to becoming “engaged campuses.” The only coalition that brings together the diverse collection of North Carolina colleges and universities around a common commitment to higher education’s civic purposes, North Carolina Campus Compact is a powerful ally in making the case for civic engagement, public service and campus-community partnerships – and for sustaining the momentum for higher education’s public service role in North Carolina.