Robert Glidden is President Emeritus of Ohio University (a public research-extensive institution with 20,000 students in Athens and an additional 9,000 students on five regional campuses throughout southeast Ohio). During his tenure as President from 1994 until 2004, Dr. Glidden led strategic planning efforts that engaged the community and refocused the University’s mission to solidify its status as one of America’s top 100 research universities. He oversaw the technological development of the institution, including the installation of computers and printers in all 4200 residence hall rooms, and he established the Office of Nationally Competitive Awards, which resulted in more prestigious national scholarship awards for the University than any other institution in Ohio. In his last three years, he led a successful $200M campaign to commemorate the bicentennial of the University.

Prior to his OU presidency, Dr. Glidden was at Florida State University, as Professor and Dean of the School of Music (1979-91) and then as Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs (1991-94). During his career he has been a member of the faculties at Wright State University, Indiana University, The University of Oklahoma, and Dean of Music at Bowling Green State University in the late 1970s. He also served (1972-75) as the Executive Director of the National Association of Schools of Music and National Association of Schools of Art in Washington.

During his presidency at OU, Dr. Glidden was a member of the Governor’s Science and Technology Council in Ohio and chaired the Ohio Aerospace Institute. He was Chair of the Mid-American (Athletics) Conference and the Inter-University Council of Ohio, a member of the Board of Directors for Ohio Campus Compact, and a member of the Ohio Higher Education Funding Commission from its inception in 1996 until his retirement in 2004. For the American Council on Education, he served as Chair of the Commission on Leadership and Institutional Effectiveness and on the Advisory Committee for the Center on Policy Analysis and facilitated four presidential roundtables in 2006, including one on “recapturing public confidence” and another on the tensions in higher education between market pressures and public purposes.

Dr. Glidden has been President of the National Association of Schools of Music and of Pi Kappa Lambda, the national honor society in music, and Chairman of the Council on Postsecondary Accreditation. From 1996 to 1998 he was Founding Chair and served on the board of the Council on Higher Education Accreditation until 2004 and continues to work on special projects for them. Acting as a consultant or evaluator for more than 70 U.S. colleges and universities, Dr. Glidden has delivered papers on various aspects of American higher education in both Europe and Asia. He worked with the European University Association in 2004 to evaluate the Irish national universities for the Irish government, and he will participate with the EUA in the evaluation of Portugal’s universities.

A native of Iowa, Dr. Glidden earned all of his academic degrees in music, a B.A. in 1958, an M.A. in 1960, and a Ph.D. in 1966 from the University of Iowa.