Joan M. Lord, PhD

Vice President, Education Policies
Southern Regional Education Board
592 10th Street
Atlanta, Georgia 30318
joan.lord@sreb.org

Joan M. Lord is vice president of Education Policies at the Southern Regional Education Board. She works closely with SREB’s Challenge to Lead effort and coordinates a series of reports on progress of SREB states in meeting twelve education goals. She also directs SREB’s Go Alliance, a partnership of SREB states that promotes high school completion and college access through outreach and communications. She joined SREB in 2001.

Her career began as a classroom teacher in Tennessee schools. She joined the University System of Georgia in 1975 as a member of the English faculty at Metropolitan College; she moved to Georgia State University in 1979 to direct its developmental studies program. She was awarded an American Council on Education fellowship in 1984 for administrative professional development and was named Assistant Vice President for Academic Programs at Georgia State in 1985.

She served as Interim Senior Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs for the University System of Georgia in 1994-95, and as Interim President of Georgia Southwestern State University in 1996. She was then named Vice President for Academic Affairs at Floyd College (Rome, GA), where she served until her retirement from the University System in 2001.

She completed undergraduate studies in English at Vanderbilt University (TN) and earned a master’s degree at Florida State University. She earned a Ph.D. at Georgia State University.