Gordon Davies served as the Director of the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia from 1977 until 1997, and as President of the Kentucky Council on Postsecondary Education from 1998 until 2002. He has taught at Yale University, the Teachers College of Columbia University, and Birzeit University in Palestine. He was a founding staff member of Richard Stockton State College in New Jersey. Born in New York City, he is a Navy veteran and worked for several years in computer sales for the IBM Corporation. He currently serves as a senior adviser to a Lumina Foundation project, the Productivity Grant Initiative, and to the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia. From 2002 through 2006, he directed a project to improve state higher education policy making, with funding provided by The Pew Charitable Trusts. In 2007, he served on a panel appointed by Virginia Governor Tim Kaine to investigate shootings at Virginia Tech that left 33 people dead and 17 wounded on April 16, 2007.