Leading Educator To Address Conference
Constantine Papadakis, President of Drexel University and a member of Leadership 100, will address the 25th Anniversary Celebration Conference at The Ritz-Carlton San Juan Hotel in Carolina, Puerto Rico February 5 to 8, 2008.
An innovator in higher education with extensive experience in both academe and the corporate world, he has been President of Drexel since 1995. Since then, Dr. Papadakis has used the historic strengths of the University (cooperative education, Drexel's focus on technology and the rich resources of its Philadelphia location) to increase full-time undergraduate enrollment from 4,500 in 1996 to more than 11,000 today. Drexel now educates a headcount of 21,000 students, is the sixth-largest employer in Philadelphia, employing 8,100 people, and has an annual budget of more than $650 million.
Dr. Papadakis joined Bechtel Power Company in 1974, where he served in several engineering positions. Dr. Papadakis was lured back to academia to head up Colorado State University’s civil engineering department, then the second largest in the nation and known for water resources research and an entrepreneurial faculty. Two years later, he became the dean of the University of Cincinnati College of Engineering.
Dr. Papadakis received his diploma in Civil Engineering from the National Technical University of Athens in Greece. He holds a master's degree in Civil Engineering from the University of Cincinnati and a doctorate from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. He is author or co-author of 80 articles and technical publications.
Dr. Papadakis presently serves as a member of the Business Higher Education Forum and the Council on Competitiveness. He also serves on the board of directors of the National Commission for Cooperative Education and the World Trade Center of Greater Philadelphia. He is a member of the Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce Executive Committee, the Board of Directors of the Opera Company of Philadelphia, the Hellenic College/Holy Cross Board of Trustees, and the Judicial Council of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania. The recipient of numerous awards and honors here and abroad, he was inducted into the Order of St. Andrew the Apostle as Archon of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople. He and his wife, Eliana, have one daughter, Maria.
