George T. French, Jr. has been named president of Clark Atlanta University in Georgia. Dr. French will assume his new duties on September 1, 2019.
The historically Black university enrolls more than 3,300 undergraduate students and nearly 700 graduate students, according to the latest data supplied to the U.S. Department of Education. African Americans make up 85 percent of the undergraduate student body.
Dr. French has served as president of Miles College in Fairfield, Alabama, since 2006. During his tenure, the college has exceeded capital campaign goals, enhanced its financial position, increased student accesses to educational funding, and more than doubled its campus size through land acquisitions. He held previous positions with Miles including interim president; director of institutional planning and development; and director of the offices of Alumni Affairs, Federal Contracts and Grants, Title III, Institutional Research and Effectiveness, Congressional Relations, and Public Relations.
Additionally, Dr. French has served two terms on the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges’ Board of Trustees, and the National Advisory Committee on Institutional Quality and Integrity. He is a member of the Birmingham Business Alliance’s Executive Committee and Birmingham Museum of Art’s Board of Directors. In 2015, he co-founded the Higher Education Leader Foundation to help prepare highly skilled talent for positions of leadership at HBCUs.
“I am thankful and blessed to have the opportunity to lead another great institution and serve as the fifth president of Clark Atlanta University,” Dr. French said. “CAU has strong faculty, students and academics. I’m optimistic about the university’s next stage of growth and eager to build on the strong foundation CAU has established.”
Dr. French is a graduate of the University of Louisville where he majored in political science with an emphasis in policy analysis. He holds a juris doctorate from the Miles Law School and a Ph.D. in higher education from Jackson State University in Mississippi.
