E. Gordon Gee has been President of Brown University since 1997 where he is also a professor of education and public policy. Since his arrival at Brown, Professor Gee has worked to ensure that Brown will remain “a private university with a public purpose.” As part of that commitment to public engagement, he is director of Health and Education Leadership for Providence, president of the Rhode Island Public Expenditure Council, director of the Providence Plan, trustee of the Providence Foundation, member of the Economic Policy Council, director of Grow Smart Rhode Island and chairman of the search committee seeking a new school superintendent for the city of Providence.

Professor Gee earned his Bachelor’s in History from the University of Utah in 1968, and a law degree and doctorate in education from Columbia University in 1971 and 1972, respectively. At Columbia, he was Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar and Kellogg Fellow. He served as assistant law dean at the University of Utah from 1973 to 1974. He was a judicial fellow and senior staff assistant in the chambers of the Chief Justice of the United States from 1974 to 1975, and associate law dean and professor of law in the J. Reuben Clark Law School at Brigham Young University from 1975 to 1979. He was dean and professor of law in the College of Law at West Virginia University from 1979 to 1981.

In 1981, at age 37, Professor Gee became one of the country’s youngest college presidents when he assumed the leadership of West Virginia University in 1981. He became president of the University of Colorado in 1985 and president of Ohio State University in 1990.

Professor Gee has written or co-authored seven books including Information Literacy: Revolution in the Library, which won the American Libraries Association’s G. K. Hall Award in 1990 for outstanding contribution to library literature.