E. Gordon Gee, among the most highly experienced and respected university presidents in thenation, returned to The Ohio State University after having served as Chancellor of VanderbiltUniversity for seven years.
Prior to his tenure at Vanderbilt, he was president of Brown University (1998-2000), The OhioState University (1990-97), the University of Colorado (1985-90), and West Virginia University(1981-85).
Born in Vernal, Utah, Gee graduated from the University of Utah with an honors degree in historyand earned his J.D. and Ed.D degrees from Columbia University. He clerked under Chief Justice DavidT. Lewis of the U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals before being named a judicial fellow and staffassistant to the U.S. Supreme Court, where he worked for Chief Justice Warren Burger onadministrative and legal problems of the Court and federal judiciary. Gee returned to Utah as anassociate professor and associate dean in the J. Reuben Clark Law School at Brigham YoungUniversity, eventually achieving the rank of full professor. In 1979 he was named dean of the WestVirginia University Law School, and in 1981 was appointed to that university's presidency.
Active in a number of national professional and service organizations, Gee served as a Trusteefor the Harry S. Truman Scholarship Foundation and as chairman of the Kellogg Commission on theFuture of State and Land Grant Universities. He is a member of the National Commission on Writingfor America's Families, Schools, and Colleges, founded by the College Board to improve the teachingand learning of writing. He also serves as co-chair of the Association of Public and Land-GrantUniversities' Energy Advisory Committee.
Gee is a member of the Board of Governors of the National Hospice Foundation, the Advisory Boardof the Christopher Isherwood Foundation, and the Board of Trustees of the Christopher ColumbusFellowship Foundation, an independent Federal government agency established to "encourage andsupport research, study and labor designed to produce new discoveries in all fields of endeavor forthe benefit of mankind." He also is a member of the Business-Higher Education Forum.
Gee has received a number of honorary degrees, awards, and recognitions. He was a Mellon Fellowfor the Aspen Institute for Humanistic Studies and a W.K. Kellogg Fellow. In 1994, he received theDistinguished Alumnus Award from the University of Utah as well as from Teachers College ofColumbia University. He is the co-author of eight books and the author of numerous papers andarticles on law and education.
Gee's daughter, Rebekah, is an assistant professor of clinical medicine in the Department ofObstetrics and Gynecology at Tulane University and a Norman F. Gant/American Board of Obstetricsand Gynecology/IOM Anniversary Fellow.
