Randy L. Swing assumed the role of Executive Director of the Association for Institutional Research (AIR) in December 2007.

Over 4,000 members from more than 1,000 universities, colleges and higher education agencies and associations benefit from AIR’s meetings, on line training, publications, grants and other services. AIR members provide data for compliance reporting, strategic planning and accountability that inform decisions at campuses, state and national levels. AIR’s international affiliates expand the research around the world.

Prior to joining the AIR staff, Randy served as Co-Director and Senior Scholar for the Policy Center on the First Year of College located in Brevard, North Carolina. Funded by major grants from The Pew Charitable Trusts, Atlantic Philanthropies, and Lumina Foundation for Education; the Center focused on assisting colleges and universities, both 2-year and 4-year, in improving the learning and success of new college students.

Until 1999, Randy worked for twenty years at Appalachian State University in an array of academic affairs positions from directing an Upward Bound project, leading academic advising, coordinating freshman seminars, to his final appointment in the Office of Institutional Research as the founding director of a campus-wide assessment initiative. His work contributed to Appalachian being named Time magazine’s 2001 College of the Year for outstanding services to first-year students.

Randy has presented over 250 workshops, conference sessions, and keynote addresses at national and international conferences on the first-year, institutional research, and higher education assessment. He edited two monographs on assessment, Proving and Improving: Strategies for Assessing the First College Year (I & II). Along with Policy Center colleagues, he is co-author of the 2005 Jossey-Bass book, Achieving and Sustaining Institutional Excellence for the First Year of College and has contributed chapters to other books and monographs. His research on first-year seminars has been widely disseminated. He reviews manuscripts for the Journal of General Education, Journal on Excellence in College Teaching, Innovative Higher Education, Learning Communities Journal, and the Journal of Assessment and Institutional Effectiveness.

Additional appointments have included serving as a fellow at the National Resource Center on The First-Year Experience and Students in Transition at the University of South Carolina, an honorary appointment as Visiting Associate Professor at Kansai University of International Studies in Japan, and as an international advisor to the Quality Assurance Agency of Scotland.

Randy also sits on advisory boards and commissions for the Collegiate Employment Research Institute, the National Institute of Learning Outcomes Assessment, the Southern Education Foundation, and the Validation Study Committee of the United Negro College Fund.

He holds a Ph.D. in higher education from the University of Georgia where he studied under AIR members, Drs. Libby Morris, Cameron Fincher, Larry Jones, and James Hearn. He holds MA and Ed.S degrees from Appalachian State University, and a B.A. in Psychology from the University of North Carolina – Charlotte. Dr. Swing began postsecondary education as a first-generation college student at Davidson County Community College in Lexington, NC.

Profile abstracts and graphic images for AIR and Randy Swing are available for download. RandySwingBio.htm.