Peter P. Smith, Ed.D. is the Senior Vice President of Academic Strategies and Development for Kaplan Higher Education. He is responsible for the development of mid-term strategies and program development to move Kaplan Higher Education, a $1 billion business, to higher profitability and academic quality.
Dr. Smith is the former Assistant Director of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and served as the founding president of California State University at Monterey Bay (CSUMB).
As the highest-ranking American at UNESCO, he was responsible for the supervision and management of some 700 full and part time staff located in more than 30 countries around the world. Headquartered in Paris, UNESCO’s Education Sector serves the Ministries of Education in the world’s less developed and emerging nations as their trusted intellectual advisor and advocate in developing and supporting national educational plans and strategies.
As founding president of CSUMB, he oversaw all aspects of leadership and development of the institution, working closely with the founding faculty. The university is widely recognized for its outcomes-based curriculum, a strong science and technology program, the first wireless computer network on a public university campus in America, a focus on first generation college students, and a commitment to service learning as a core component of the curriculum.
Dr. Smith, who holds a Doctor of Education from Harvard University, also advanced higher education in Vermont. He led a successful effort to implement Vermont’s community college system, which included the design of its operating, administrative, academic, and assessment systems. Peter served as the first president of the statewide Community College of Vermont from 1970-1978, and was named President Emeritus upon resigning.
Later, he went on to serve as the Dean of the Graduate School of Education and Human Development for George Washington University. He increased the student body, earned a new facility, and added highly talented and diverse faculty during his tenure from 1991-1994.
In 1989, he was elected as a representative from Vermont to the U.S. House of Representatives. He served as Vermont’s Lieutenant Governor from 1982-1986.
Dr. Smith is the author of the critically acclaimed The Quiet Crisis: How Higher Education Is Failing America (Anker Publications, Bolton Mass., 2004) & Harnessing America’s Wasted Talent A New Ecology of Learning (Published by Jossey-Bass A Wiley Imprint, San Francisco, CA 2010).
