GEORGIA SOUTHWESTERN STATE UNIVERSITY

The President of Georgia Southwestern State University

Kendall Blanchard is serving as the 10^th President of Georgia Southwestern University.  He came to GSW as the interim president in January of 2007 and was named to the permanent position in June. 

Kendall Blanchard grew up in Gainesville, Florida.  After graduating from Gainesville High School he went to Olivet Nazarene College in Kankakee, Illinois, where he graduated with an AB in English.  The following year he taught English and coached high school basketball at Grant Park (Illinois) High School.  He then matriculated to Vanderbilt University where he received his Masters of Divinity degree.  Subsequently, he attended Southern Methodist University, earning his M.A. and Ph.D. in cultural anthropology.  A few years later he completed a one-year post-doctoral program at Johns Hopkins University.

Blanchard’s first university teaching position was at Middle Tennessee State University where he served as Chair of the Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Social Work.  Subsequently, he served as Dean of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Emporia State University (Kansas), as Dean of Arts and Sciences at Lamar University (Texas), as Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs at the University of Tennessee at Martin, and as President at Fort Lewis College in Colorado.   

Blanchard has been active in many professional organizations as a member and an officer.  He has belonged to several honorary and civic organizations.  He has also been active in international education and has served as a consultant to a variety of organizations and communities.

Blanchard’s research interests include the anthropology of religion, the anthropology of education, and the anthropology of sport.  He has written and published widely in a variety of areas.   His major publications include The Economics of Sainthood: Religious Change among the Rimrock Navajo (Fairleigh-Dickinson University Press), The Serious Side of Leisure: The Mississippi Choctaws at Play (University of Illinois Press), and The Anthropology of Sport (Greenwood Press).

Kendall Blanchard is married to Connie Garcia Blanchard.  Connie has a PhD in Spanish Literature from the University of Kansas and has taught and served as an administrator at several universities (e.g., Emporia State, Murray State, Southeast Missouri, and the University of Kansas).  The Blanchards have five children and three grandchildren.