Since assuming office as Vice Chancellor and President of the University of the South in 2000, Joel Cunningham has led a multi-faceted strategic planning effort that has touched virtually every area of the University’s operation, resulting in increased applications for the undergraduate College of Arts and Sciences, a revitalization of the School of Theology, and a growing recognition of Sewanee as a national liberal arts university of the top rank. Under his leadership, The Sewanee Call fundraising campaign came to a record-breaking conclusion in 2008 with over $205.7 million in gifts and commitments, exceeding the $180 million goal by over $25 million. The campaign was marked by over $40 million in endowment commitments for scholarships and faculty support; academic, residential and athletics facility construction; a 3,000-acre addition to the University’s landholdings; and significant academic support.
Throughout his career, Cunningham has been active nationally in higher education, and he has raised Sewanee's profile among the nation's top liberal arts institutions. He was a founding member of both the National Campus Compact and the Pennsylvania Campus Compact organizations for student public service. He chaired the Commission on Policy Analysis of the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities and was president of the Society for Values in Higher Education. He is active in the Association of Episcopal Colleges, the Colleges and Universities of the Anglican Communion, the Tennessee Independent Colleges and Universities Association, the Appalachian Colleges Association and the Committee on Policy Analysis and Public Relations of the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities.
Joel Cunningham became the 15th Vice Chancellor and President of the University of the South in July, 2000. He grew up in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and came first to Sewanee at age 8 when his older brother enrolled as a freshman. He graduated summa cum laude from the University of Chattanooga in 1965 with majors in mathematics and psychology, and he completed his master’s and doctoral degrees in mathematics from the University of Oregon.
He began his career in academe as a member of the faculty at the University of Kentucky, where he taught mathematics for five years. He made his first return to Tennessee, to his alma mater, in fact, when he was appointed dean of continuing education and mathematics faculty member at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, in 1974. He served a year as an American Council on Education Fellow with the Chancellor of the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and the President of the University of Tennessee. He left Chattanooga in 1979 to become vice president for academic affairs, dean of the faculty, and professor of mathematics at Susquehanna University in Pennsylvania. In 1984 he was named president there where he remained until 2000, when he was elected vice chancellor by Sewanee’s board of trustees and made his second Tennessee homecoming.
Joel and Trudy Cunningham were married a week after their graduation from the University of Chattanooga. Trudy has had her own distinguished career, including service as a mathematics faculty member at the Baylor School and as a faculty member and dean at Bucknell University. She now teaches and is an academic administrator at Sewanee. The Cunninghams have two daughters who live now in New York City and Washington, DC.
“We believe that broadly educated men and women are ideally suited to address the complexities of life and work,” says Cunningham. “Sewanee graduates are better able to perceive connections among disciplines, to think creatively, and to communicate with others. These are the essential characteristics of citizenship and leadership, and we do a better job than most in achieving them.”
