Presidential Investiture

Dr. Mark Becker

Mark Becker is president of the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities, a research, policy, and advocacy organization dedicated to strengthening and advancing the work of public research universities. The association's membership consists of more than 250 public research universities, land-grant institutions, state university systems and affiliated organizations. He had previously served as a member of APLU’s Board of Directors and as chair of the Board for the Coalition of Urban Serving Universities, which has a permanent partnership with APLU.

 

His academic career has included serving as a post-doctoral fellow, professor, dean, provost, and president at flagships, land-grants and urban serving institutions. From January 2009 to August 2021, Becker was the seventh president of Georgia State University. Becker led the transformation of Georgia State from a formerly little-known “commuter school” into one of the nation’s premier urban research universities. He served as executive vice president for academic affairs and provost at the University of South Carolina from 2004 to 2008.

 

Becker attended Harford Community College in Maryland and earned his bachelor’s degree in mathematics from Towson State University and a doctoral degree in statistics from the Pennsylvania State University. Becker has received numerous awards and recognitions, including being named one of America’s 10 most innovative university presidents by Washington Monthly.

Dr. Robert J. Jones

Robert Jones is chancellor of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and vice president, University of Illinois System. He previously served as president of the University at Albany, State University of New York (SUNY). A Georgia native born in 1951, Jones earned a bachelor’s degree in agronomy from Fort Valley State College, a master’s degree in crop physiology from the University of Georgia, and a doctorate in crop physiology from the University of Missouri, Columbia. He began his academic career as a faculty member at Minnesota in 1978. An experienced and accomplished scientist and research-university leader, he is also recognized as an internationally respected authority on plant physiology.

 

Under his leadership, the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign has achieved major milestones, such as hiring its inaugural vice chancellor for diversity, equity, and inclusion, completing the largest philanthropic campaign in the institution’s history, and launching the Illinois Commitment program to make college education affordable and accessible to Illinois students from low-income families. 

 

Throughout his career, Jones has worked to make education available to promising young scholars around the world. He is an accomplished vocalist and serves on the boards of multiple national and international organizations.

His Eminence Archbishop Elpidophoros (Lambriniadis) of America

His Eminence Archbishop Elpidophoros of America, Most Honorable Exarch of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, is the eighth Archbishop of America elected since the establishment of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese in 1922. 

 

He was born in 1967 in Bakirköy, Istanbul. He graduated from Aristotle University of Thessaloniki — School of Pastoral and Social Theology in 1991 and finished postgraduate studies at the University of Bonn, Germany. He was ordained a deacon in 1994 and in 1995 was appointed Deputy Secretary of the Holy and Sacred Synod. In 2001, he earned a doctorate of theology with highest distinction at the Theological School of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. In 2005, he was promoted by the Holy and Sacred Synod to Chief Secretary and ordained to the priesthood. 

 

He has served on the Joint International Commission for the Theological Dialogue between the Orthodox Church and the Lutheran World Federation and as a member of the Patriarchal delegations to the General Assemblies of the Conference of European Churches and the World Council of Churches. He was Secretary of the Pan-Orthodox Synods in Sofia, Istanbul, Geneva, and Istanbul.

 

In 2019, he was elected Archbishop of America by the Holy and Sacred Synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate and enthroned at the Archdiocesan Cathedral of the Holy Trinity in New York City.