ARCHE Staff

Michael A. Gerber, President
Jackie Smith, Administrative Coordinator

Michael A. Gerber
President

Michael A. Gerber has served as president of the Atlanta Regional Council for Higher Education since 1998. ARCHE brings together 20 of the region’s public and private colleges and universities to share resources and raise awareness of higher education’s scope and impact. He has built ARCHE into a central source of information about the collective enterprise of higher education and its many contributions to both the region and the State of Georgia. In 2011, ARCHE launched a new sustainability initiative to foster increased collaboration among its members around this topic, share best practices, and engage students.

Prior to joining ARCHE, Gerber served for eight years as president of the Connecticut Conference of Independent Colleges, an organization that represents private colleges and universities.  As part of his responsibilities with the Connecticut college group, Gerber held the position of executive director of the Connecticut Higher Education Supplemental Loan Authority, a quasi-state agency that makes loans to college students and their parents.  He also was responsible for creation of the Connecticut Independent College and University Institute for Research and Public Service and served as a gubernatorial appointee on the New England Board of Higher Education.

Gerber began his career by serving for 11 years as vice president of the Maryland Association of Independent Colleges and Universities. 

Currently, Gerber is a member of the Grady Hospital Board of Visitors, the Georgia Partnership for Excellence in Education, the Georgia Chamber of Commerce Education and Workforce Development Committee, and both the Bioscience and Technology Leadership Councils of the Metro Atlanta Chamber.  He also is a member of the founding board of Neighborhood Nexus, a collaborative effort by higher education, planning agencies, and the foundation sector to provide Web-based data tools across a range of community indicators that can be used to better inform public policy and charitable giving decision-making.

Gerber is a past member of the Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (the southeast region’s higher education accrediting body). He served on the Healthy Community Advisory Committee to the Fort McPherson Planning Local Redevelopment Authority and has been named a “notable Georgian” by Georgia Trend magazine. Gerber also is an inaugural recipient of Business-to-Business magazine’s IMPACT Leader Awards for his work at ARCHE. He received  the Association of County Commissioners of Georgia 2011 Advocate of the Year award for his efforts in helping establish the Georgia County Internship Program for college and university students statewide.

He is a native of Baltimore and a graduate summa cum laude from the University of Maryland at College Park with a Bachelor of Arts in government and politics.

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Jackie Smith
Administrative Coordinator

Jackie Smith joined the ARCHE staff in 2011. She was previously with international advertising consultancy company NRS Media, where she worked for more than five years as Project Manager and Research Analyst. She holds a Bachelor of Science in Sports Management with a minor in Public Relations from Nebraska Wesleyan University.

She currently is pursuing a Master of Science in Sports Administration at Georgia State University and is particularly interested in academic advisement of college athletes.

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