Contributor

Jon Whitmore

CEO, ACT

Jon Whitmore assumed the role of Chief Executive Officer of ACT on September 1, 2010. ACT’s services include a broad range of assessments encompassing all levels of the educational continuum and a growing array of assessment systems supportive of economic and workforce development worldwide. Currently engaged in an extensive developmental agenda that is expanding its work in the U.S. and extending its mission abroad, ACT serves millions of people in high schools, colleges, professional associations, businesses, and government agencies.

Whitmore was appointed the 27th President of San José State University in August 2008. With an enrollment of more than 30,000 students, San José State is Silicon Valley’s largest university and has delivered quality higher education to the Bay Area for more than 150 years. Prior to that, he served for five years as President of Texas Tech University, where he led successful initiatives to increase academic excellence, raise student retention and graduation rates, and expand the numbers of minority students and faculty at the campus. He served as Provost and Professor of Theatre Arts at The University of Iowa from 1996 until 2003. That position followed six years as Dean of the College of Fine Arts at the University of Texas at Austin.

At West Virginia University in the early 1980s, Whitmore served as Chair of the Division of Theater, as Assistant to the President, and as Interim Dean of the College of Creative Arts. He became Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Letters at the State University of New York at Buffalo in 1985 and moved to Texas in 1990. Whitmore has directed more than 60 theatrical performances and produced more than 50 main stage and 80 second season productions.

Whitmore earned his B.A. and M.A. in Speech from Washington State University in 1967 and 1968, respectively. In 1974, he earned the Ph.D. in Dramatic Arts from the University of California, Santa Barbara. His doctoral dissertation focused on the dramatic writings of William Saroyan.