Hilpert re-elected to chair

Dr. John Hilpert

Delta State University president Dr. John M. Hilpert was re-elected as chair of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges (SACSCOC). Hilpert will serve a third one-year term. He assumed the duties of chair in early 2010. He is one of only two Mississippi university presidents to hold the position with the educational accreditation agency, and joins the ranks of a very small number of people who have been elected for three one-year terms.

As chair, Hilpert is also an ex officio member of the boards of both the Council of Regional Accrediting Commissions and the overarching organization that coordinates the work of SACSCOC and AdvancEd, the regional accreditor for elementary and secondary education.

Throughout his career, Hilpert has provided leadership for various organizations on boards, task forces and committees. He was appointed in 2004 by Gov. Haley Barbour to serve on Mississippi’s Council for Education Technology. As a member of the American Association of State Colleges and Universities, he served as an appointee to both the Commission for the Rural/Regional Agenda and the Task Force on Teacher Education as well as being elected to the organization’s Council of State Representatives for both South Dakota and Mississippi. In 2008, he was elected president of the Mississippi Association of Colleges and Universities, an organization of all public and private, two-year and four-year postsecondary institutions in the state.