John E. Ivey, Jr.

Who was John E. Ivey, Jr.?

John Eli Ivey, Jr. was an American educator, a proponent of regional cooperation between colleges and universities, and was best known for innovations in the use of communications technology—specifically television—in education. He was a founder of the Southern Regional Education Board, served on the 1960 panel that recommended to John F. Kennedy the creation of the Peace Corps, and designed the University of South Florida.

Ivey was born in Raleigh, North Carolina, but from age five grew up in Auburn, Alabama, attending Auburn High School and the Alabama Polytechnic Institute, the latter from which he graduated from in 1940 with his B.S. degree. He then studied sociology at the University of North Carolina under Howard Odum, earning his Ph.D. from that institution in 1944. He briefly worked for the Tennessee Valley Authority, before returning to the University of North Carolina in 1947, where at 28 years old he became the youngest full professor in that institution's history.

In 1948 Ivey was called to head the nascent Southern Regional Education Board, an alliance of 16 Southern states which sought to improve education through regional cooperation.