I am truly honored to serve as the next director of the Louise McBee Institute of Higher Education. As the McBee Institute commemorates its 60th anniversary this year, I am excited to work with our faculty, staff, students and long-standing partners on the next chapter for the institute
Director and Professor of Higher Education
Erik Ness is director and professor of higher education at the McBee Institute of Higher Education. Previously, he served as an assistant professor and coordinator of the Higher Education Management program at the University of Pittsburgh and as a policy analyst for the Tennessee Higher Education Commission. He earned a B.A. in political science from North Carolina State University, an M.A. in comparative and international education from Loyola University Chicago, and a Ph.D. in education policy from Vanderbilt University.
Ness conducts research on higher education politics and policy. His research agenda follows two paths: (a) public policy effects, especially on students, institutions, and state systems, and (b) public policy-making process, specifically the political dynamics associated with higher education policy adoption. His recent co-edited volume Comparative Higher Education Politics (with Jungblut, Maltais, and Rexe; Springer, 2023) examines governance, finance, policy framing, diffusion, and interest groups in a global context.
His work also considers the role of intermediary organizations in shaping how policy makers rely on evidence to craft policy in the adoption and implementation of various state higher education policy initiatives, such as college completion strategies and merit-based scholarship programs. Based on this work, Ness developed an FYO seminar—Research Evidence, Alternative Facts, and Fake News—that was recognized with a UGA First-Year Odyssey Teaching Award in 2021.
Ness’s current research examines state authorization of postsecondary education. With support from the State Higher Education Executive Officers association (SHEEO), Arnold Ventures, and the Lumina Foundation for Education, he leads the State Postsecondary Authorization Research Team to analyze the processes for initial authorization and subsequent reauthorization across all 50 states.