Robert Smith- Inspiring Innovation

Office Hours with John Gardner

Dr. Robert (Bob) Smith is the University of Tennessee System’s Senior Advisor for Executive Leadership and Talent Development.

In 2023, he took leave to serve as the Interim Executive Director for the Tennessee Higher Education Commission, the state’s agency for coordination and state-wide policy guidance to all public institutions of higher education in Tennessee. Responsibilities included executing the state’s master plan for higher education, managing the state’s performance and quality outcomes formulas, as well as increasing degree attainment and protect students and consumers.

Smith has devoted more than five decades of service to public higher education. In 1999, following administrative roles at Wichita State University and the University of Tennessee at Martin, he became the Provost at Slippery Rock University of Pennsylvania (SRU) later president, retiring as President Emeritus in 2012. He was named Chancellor of the University of Tennessee at Martin (UTM) and Chancellor Emeritus for service between 2015 and 2017.

Since 2017 in his current role, he created and directed the University of Tennessee Executive Leadership Institute and the Tennessee Higher Education Innovation and Leadership Fellows program for the Tennessee Higher Education Commission. These two programs have helped prepare a new generation of executive leaders for all Tennessee public higher education sectors.

In 1980-1981, he was competitively selected as a Fellow for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of the Secretary, serving in the Carter and Reagan administrations.

His work has led to more than two dozen national institutional honors for innovation in enrollment management. In 2011, the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers awarded him their inaugural “Strategic Enrollment Management Leadership” award. He has also been recognized as a "First-Year Student Advocate" by the National Resource Center for the First-Year Experience and Students in Transition; and recipient of two national teaching awards from the Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE). In 2005, he received an Honorary Doctorate in Letters from Rajasthan Vidyapeeth University in Udaipur India for his help in developing educational opportunities in rural India.

Smith and his wife, Ramona, live in Franklin, Tennessee. His son and daughter-in-law live in Knoxville, Tennessee and his daughter and son-in-law live in Raleigh, North Carolina.