Jerome (Jerry) Sullivan served as the Executive Director of AACRAO for fourteen years, from 1998-2012. His outstanding service to AACRAO and higher education resulted in a reinvigorated national organization. During those years, AACRAO priorities included sustainability and increased value for its members, including advocacy at the federal level. Jerry guided AACRAO through very lean years, and turned the financial position of the organization from critical lows to consistent strength. During Jerry’s tenure, AACRAO focused on electronic standards, privacy issues in higher education, distance education, comparative international education research, and transfer credit.
Jerry’s career in higher education began in 1966 at the University of Maine, and was followed by key administrative appointments at Kent State University, Iowa State University, and the University of Colorado at Boulder. Consistently known for innovation, he was among the early advocates of administrative process reengineering in higher education, and developed a national reputation for innovative uses of information technology to streamline service delivery on campuses where he worked. His contributions in this area resulted in a one-year appointment in 1995 to the U.S. Department of Education to lead the reengineering of the federal government’s student financial aid delivery system. Jerry has written and lectured on a variety of topics ranging from process redesign to the student loan financing system. He holds a master’s degree in public administration from the University of Maine.