Lester A. Lefton and his wife,
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Biography
Dr. Lester A. Lefton became Kent State University's 11th president in July 2006. As Kent State president and chief executive officer, Dr. Lefton oversees one of the nation's largest university systems. Kent State's eight campuses provide more than 280 academic programs to more than 34,000 undergraduate and graduate students from throughout Ohio and the nation, and from 100 countries. One of the largest employers in Northeast Ohio, the university employs more than 4,600 full- and part-time faculty and staff.
Prior to coming to Kent State, he was senior vice president for academic affairs and provost at Tulane University, dean of George Washington University’s College of Arts and Sciences, and dean of the University of South Carolina’s College of Liberal Arts.
Dr. Lefton is respected internationally for his scholarship in the field of experimental psychology. An authority on visual attention and memory, his research has been supported with numerous federal grants and has been published widely in scholarly journals. He was elected a fellow of the American Psychological Association, an honor that recognizes his impact on the field of psychology.
Dr. Lefton has been active in a number of national higher education organizations. He is known nationally as a passionate advocate for undergraduate education. An award-winning teacher with 36 years of university teaching experience, Dr. Lefton’s introductory psychology textbook, now in its ninth edition, is used in college classrooms nationwide.
In keeping with Kent State’s strong support of regional and state economic development, Dr. Lefton is active on the boards of NorTech and the Greater Akron Chamber, and is a member of Leadership Cleveland’s Class of 2008. During 2007, he served on the Northeast Ohio Universities Collaboration and Innovation Study Commission, which was created by the Ohio General Assembly. The Commission submitted a wide range of recommendations to the Ohio Legislature and the Ohio Board of Regents about ways to improve quality, collaborations and efficiency among the region’s public colleges and universities. Dr. Lefton also upholds the university’s role as a regional cultural resource through service on the boards of public television station Channels 45/49 and the Musical Arts Association of the Cleveland Orchestra.
At the national level, Dr. Lefton will begin a three-year term on the American Council on Education’s (ACE) Commission on Effective Leadership in July 2008. The commission advises the ACE’s Center for Effective Leadership, which provides a variety of leadership and professional-development programs for presidents and other higher education administrators.
A Boston native, Dr. Lefton earned a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Northeastern University (1969). He holds a Ph.D. in experimental psychology from the University of Rochester (1974), where he held a U.S. Public Health Service Predoctoral Fellowship.
The president and his wife, Linda J. Lefton, have two grown daughters and a grandson. Mrs. Lefton is an attorney who served as a state prosecutor in South Carolina and was an academic advisor for pre-law majors at George Washington and Tulane universities. She serves on the board of the Pediatric Palliative Care Center at Akron Children’s Hospital and is a member of the Women’s Committee of the Cleveland Orchestra. Mrs. Lefton is a 2008 graduate of Leadership Portage County.