Michael K. McLendon

Associate Dean and Chief of Staff, Associate Professor of Public Policy and Higher Education

Ph.D., University of Michigan, 2000

Joined faculty in 1999

Short Biography

Michael McLendon is Associate Dean and Chief of Staff and Associate Professor of Public Policy and Higher Education at Peabody College, Vanderbilt University. He also directs the Program in Higher Education Leadership and Policy.

Professor McLendon concentrates his research and teaching on public governance and finance of higher education. Much of his scholarship focuses on the role of political institutions and post secondary governance structures in shaping policy outcomes at both the state and campus levels.

His recent research includes studies of (1) the factors associated with state appropriations and tuition setting in public higher education, (2) the origins and spread of certain accountability and financing reforms for higher education, and (3) the relationship between state political systems and post secondary policy innovation.

McLendon's research has appeared in The Journal of Higher Education, Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, Research in Higher Education, Review of Higher Education, American Journal of Education, Teachers' College Record, Journal of Education Finance, Educational Policy, Higher Education: Handbook of Theory and Research, and as chapters in numerous books.

He teaches graduate courses on state politics, policy, and organization of higher education.

Currently, Professor McLendon serves as co-principal investigator (with Professors Will Doyle and John Braxton) on a national study funded by the Lumina Foundation that has investigated the impact of state policies on college-student retention, graduation, and success. McLendon consults with national policy organizations, state governmental agencies, governors, and legislatures. McLendon serves as an associate editor for Higher Education: Handbook of Theory and Research and as consulting editor for Research in Higher Education and Review of Higher Education. He is a former co-editor of the Politics of Education Yearbook.

At Vanderbilt, he has chaired the academic policies committees of the University Senate and the Peabody Faculty Council.

Professor McLendon holds a Ph.D. in Higher Education Policy from the University of Michigan. Prior to undertaking his doctoral studies, he served as a policy analyst on the Higher Education Committee of the Florida House of Representatives and on the staff of U.S. Senator David Pryor, in Washington, D.C.

 

Learn More about Michael K. McLendon:

Courses Taught | Selected Publications
Awards | CV

Selected Publications

View a video of Michael McLendon's presentation "Historic Uncertainties and New Opportunities in Funding American Higher Education." (May 2009)

McLendon, M.K., Mokher, C.G., Doyle, W. Privileging public research universities: The political economy of state appropriations to higher education. (PDF).  Journal of Education Finance.

McLendon, M.K., Hearn, J.C., & Mokher, C. (2008). Partisans,professionals, and power: The role of political factors in state higher education funding. The Journal of Higher Education.

McLendon, M.K., Tuchmayer, J., and Park. T. (In press). State policy climates for college student success: An analysis of state policy documents pertaining to student retention and graduation. Journal of College Student Retention.

McLendon, M.K., & Hearn, J.C. (In press). Viewing recent U.S. governance reform whole: "Decentralization" in a distinctive context. In J. Huisman (Ed.). System Governance: Steering, Policy Processes, and Outcomes

McLendon, M.K., & Mokher, C. (In press). The origins and spread of state policies privatizing public higher education. In C. Morphew and P. Eckel (Ed.). Privatization of the Public Research University. Johns Hopkins University Press.

McLendon, M.K., & Cohen-Vogel, L. (In press). Understanding education policy change in the American states: Lessons from contemporary political science. Understanding the Politics of Education: AERA Handbook of Theory and Research. (pp. 66-112). Washington, DC: American Educational Research Association & Lawrence Erlbaum.

McLendon, M.K., Heller, D.E., & Lee, S. (In press). High school to college transition policies in the states: Conceptual and analytic perspectives on conducting across-state study. Educational Policy

Mokher, C., & McLendon, M.K. Uniting secondary and postsecondary education: An event history analysis of state adoption of dual enrollment policies. American Journal of Education

Hearn, J.C., McLendon, M.K., & Mokher, C. (2007). Accounting for student success: An empirical analysis of the origins and spread of state student unit-record systems. Research in Higher Education, 50

McLendon, M.K., & Hearn, J.C. (In press). Openness laws, institutional governance, and democracy. Politics and access to state information about higher education: Teacher's College Record

Cohen-Vogel, L., & McLendon, M.K. (In press). New approaches to unanswered questions about federal involvement in education. In D. Plank, G. Sykes & B. Schneider (Eds.). (pp. 42-90). AERA Handbook on Education Policy Research Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum & Associates.

McLendon, M.K., Deaton, R., & Hearn, J.C. (2007). The enactment of state-level governance reforms for higher education: A test of the political-instability hypothesis. The Journal of Higher Education, 78(6), 645-675.

McLendon, M.K., & Hearn, J.C. (2007). Incorporating political indicators into comparative-state research on postsecondary policy: Opportunities and limitations of space and time. In K. Shaw & D.E. Heller (Eds.). The challenges of comparative state-level higher education policy research. Sterling, VA: Stylus.

McLendon, M.K., Hearn, J.C., & Deaton, R. (2006). Called to account: Analyzing the origins and spread of state performance-accountability policies for higher education.Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 28

McLendon, M.K., & Hearn, J.C. (2006). Mandated openness in higher education: A field study of sunshine laws and institutional governance. The Journal of Higher Education, 77(4)

McLendon, M.K., & Hearn, J.C. (2006). Mandated openness and higher education governance: Policy, theoretical, and analytic perspectives. Higher Education: Handbook of Theory and Research, Vol. New York: Springer.

McLendon, M.K., Heller, D.E., & Young, S. (2005). State postsecondary education policy innovation: Politics, competition, and the interstate migration of policy ideas. The Journal of Higher Education, 76

McLendon, M.K. (2004). Straddling market and state: Higher education governance and finance reforms in Kazakhstan. In S.P. Heyneman & A.P. DeYoung (Eds.), The challenges of education in Central Asia(pp. 275-294). Greenwich, CT: Information Age Publishing.

McLendon, M. K. (2003). State governance reform of higher education: Patterns, trends, and theories of the public policy process. Higher Education: Handbook of Theory and Research, Vol. XVIII (pp. 57-144). London: Kluwer.

McLendon, M. K. (2003). Setting the governmental agenda for state decentralization of higher education. The Journal of Higher Education, 74(5), 1-37.

McLendon, M.K. (2003). The politics of higher education: Toward an expanded research agenda. Educational Policy, 17(1), 165-191.

McLendon, M.K., & Hearn, J.C. (2003). The politics of higher education. Educational Policy, 17(1), 3-11.

McLendon, M.K., & Hearn, J.C. (Editors). (2003). The politics of education yearbook special issue: The politics of higher education. Educational Policy, 17

McLendon, M.K., & Ness, E.C. (2003). The politics of state higher education governance reform. PeabodyJournal of Education, 78

McLendon, M.K. (2003). The political economy of state policy innovation: Higher education decentralization. In M. Harris & R. Kinney (Eds.), Entrepreneurs and innovation in state and local government (pp. 33-60). Boston, MA: Lexington.

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