Dr. Mark Emblidge joined Virginia Commonwealth University in 2004. He currently serves as an affiliate professor in the University’s School of Education and as Director of The Literacy Institute at VCU, for which he serves as manager and co-principal investigator of a $3.7 million federal Early Reading First grant. Dr. Emblidge’s research focuses on adult and family literacy, high school reform, and at-risk children.
Dr. Emblidge has been closely involved with a variety of state and national educational issues over the past twenty years. He has served as the founding director of the Virginia Literacy Foundation since its inception in 1987. In 1994, Emblidge was elected to the first elected school board in Richmond, Virginia, where he served for four terms and was elected three times to serve as chairman. In 1995, President Bill Clinton appointed Dr. Emblidge to the board of the National Institute for Literacy. He became the Institute’s chair in 1998 and served in that position until the end of his term in 2002, when Virginia Governor Mark Warner appointed him to the Virginia State Board of Education. This was followed in 2004 with a four-year appointment to the Southern Regional Education Board (SREB). In 2006, Governor Timothy Kaine re-appointed Dr. Emblidge to the State Board of Education, after which Emblidge was elected President by the members of the Board.
Dr. Emblidge received his Ph.D. and his Master’s Degree in Education from the University of Virginia and a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science from Gordon College in Wenham, Massachusetts.