Dr. Watson Scott Swail, EPI President & CEO
Watson Scott Swail is the President and Chief Executive Officer of The Educational Policy Institute, a non-profit, non-governmental organization dedicated to policy-based research on educational opportunity for all students. With offices in Arlington, VA, Toronto, Ontario, and Melbourne, Australia, the mission of EPI is to impact the development and implementation of public policy and educational practice through high-level research and analysis. With this information, it is our earnest hope and belief that policymakers, researchers, and practitioners will make prudent decisions to enhance educational opportunities for all students, especially for low-income and other historically under-represented students at the postsecondary level.
Widely respected in the area of college opportunity research, Dr. Swail has published extensively in national journals and publications. Recent publications include "Latino Students and the Educational Pipeline," "The Affordability of Higher Education," and "Higher Education and the New Demographics." He has been published in Phi Delta Kappan, Change, and the Chronicle of Higher Education.
Dr. Swail serves on a number of national advisory committees, including technical review panels for the major U.S. longitudinal and cross-sectional surveys sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics. As well, he has recently conducted projects for the Canada Millennium Scholarship Program related to postsecondary access in Canada.
Prior to establishing EPI, Dr. Swail served as the Founding Director of The Pell Institute and Vice President of the Council for Opportunity in Education in Washington, DC. He previously served as senior policy analyst with SRI International and associate director for policy analysis with the College Board. While with the Board, Dr. Swail co-directed the Trends in College Pricing and Trends in Student Aid reports released in the U.S. each fall. He is a former technology teacher and taught at Victor Wyatt School in Winnipeg, Manitoba, and also at Benjamin Syms Middle School in Hampton, Virginia.
In addition to his research and writing, Dr. Swail teaches educational policy and research at The George Washington University in Washington, DC, where he received his doctorate in educational policy. He earned his Master's of Science from Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia, and Bachelor's of Education from the University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Manitoba. Dr. Swail serves on the research advisory board of the National Action Council on Minorities in Engineering (NACME) and also on the Board of Directors of the Student Resource Services in St. Louis. Dr. Swail is listed in the 2007-08 Who's Who in American Education, and resides in Virginia Beach, Virginia, with his wife, three growing boys, and Rigby, the Standard Poodle.
To download Dr. Swail's curriculum vita, click here.
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