Gordon H. Mueller
Hall of Fame Class of 1999
Throughout Gordon H. Mueller's career as an adult and continuing education administrator for the University of New Orleans and in his various leadership roles in national education associations, he has been constantly engaged in the task of redefining the boundaries of the university.
During his seventeen-year administrative tenure at UNO, Dr. Mueller established the university's off-campus learning centers, creating the infrastructure and programs that served more than 20,000 adult workers and students in a regional education network throughout New Orleans. To assure the highest standards of excellence and innovation in these efforts, he secured the support of distinguished faculty, business leaders, and top professionals to build UNO's extension, telecommunications, and off-campus centers, all from ground zero.
Dr. Mueller is also known for his creation of innovative partnerships between business and universities, especially UNO's Business-Higher Education Council which he founded in 1980. He has been a champion of such partnerships, pushing his professional colleagues in continuing higher education to help their institutions through major transformations sweeping through education and the economy.
In 1997-98, Dr. Mueller served as President of the University Continuing Education Association. During his tenure he established the association's annual Executive Assembly to advance the professional development for CEOs on major trends affecting adult learning and management of continuing education. He also served as a member of UCEA's Board of Directors for eight years and as chair and member of many national and regional committees.
He has described his mission on a national level as bringing "leaders from business, university administration, and faculty together to help universities overcome the central problems imposed by academic entrepreneurship in the advent of the information age: retaining their essential purpose and integrity while responding to the dramatic changes and needs of our society, striking a new balance between isolation and involvement, and adjusting to the new technologies that are changing the way we learn, how we teach, and how information and education can be transmitted."