George W. Bush Appoints Sandy Kress as Fellow at Bush Institute

(Austin, Texas) – Former President George W. Bush has appointed Sandy Kress, a partner at Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP in Austin, as a fellow at the new George W. Bush Institute in Dallas.  President Bush announced the appointment on November 12 at Southern Methodist University, where the Institute will be housed. 

The independent, nonpartisan public policy Institute – part of the George W. Bush Presidential Center – will provide a forum for study and advocacy in four main areas: education, global health, human freedom and economic growth; programs in all of these areas will begin in 2010.  In addition, the Institute will work to empower women and foster social entrepreneurship. 

While continuing to work part time as a partner at Akin Gump, Mr. Kress will serve as the Institute’s director of Education Policy Development and Outreach and chairman of its Education Policy Council.  Along with Akin Gump senior education advisor Beth Ann Bryan, who has been named as the Institute’s first education policy associate, and former Vanderbilt University professor Dr. Jim Guthrie, who has been named as an education fellow, Mr. Kress will oversee as the Institute’s first project a study on how best to recruit, prepare, evaluate and reward leaders in the field of education.  The project will be launched in Dallas in March 2010 with a national conference on education, which will bring together educators, scholars, and private- and public-sector officials.

Mr. Kress previously served as an advisor to President Bush on the No Child Left Behind Act.  A former president of the Dallas Independent School District’s board of trustees, Mr. Kress also served on Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s Select Committee on Public School Accountability, Governor’s Competitiveness Council and Commission for a College Ready Texas. 

Mr. Kress also serves as a senior fellow at the James B. Hunt, Jr. Institute for Educational Leadership and Policy.  The Institute, which honors the legacy of former Democratic governor and champion of education James B. Hunt Jr. of North Carolina, works to inspire elected officials and key policymakers to make informed decisions that result in improving the lives of all children through quality education.

Founded in 1945, Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP, a leading international law firm, numbers more than 800 lawyers and advisors in the United States, Europe, Asia and the Middle East.

# # #