James R. Anderson, PhD

Hall of Fame Class of 2007

James R. Anderson, PhD, earned a bachelor’s degree in human resources management from Michigan State University, a master’s degree in management and a doctorate in labor economics, both from Florida State University. He joined Central Texas College in Killeen, Texas, in July 1987 and was appointed chancellor in July 1988. Prior to joining CTC, Anderson retired from the U.S. Air Force, having progressed from airman to colonel.

Anderson took over a struggling community college with a somewhat checkered reputation and built it into a dominant institution offering educational programs and services for American Servicemembers around the world at the vocational-technical/associate degree levels. His leadership, energy, and dedication to the adult and continuing education of the nation’s Servicemembers and their families have made a highly significant and lasting impact throughout the field. 

He expanded his community college’s access to hundreds of thousands of working adults in military services, businesses and industries in Texas and throughout the world. He led CTC to provide a large array of associate-level programs focusing on vocational-technical disciplines as well as on college preparatory and English-as-a-Second Language courses.

Under his direction, his institution has provided educational services personnel who complement American military educators located in Europe and the Middle East to include Afghanistan, Bosnia, Kosovo, Iraq, Qatar and the Sinai of Egypt. He grew CTC’s presence to 150 different sites, many of them on United States military bases as well as on all major U.S. Navy vessels at sea. He ensures that these sites have state-of-the-art instructional technologies as well as traditional classroom-delivery methodologies. His ambitious multi-year, many-phased Quality Enhancement Plan (QEP) serves to bring every facet of his far-flung institution into a unified and consistent environment for student learning. 

CTC has become a responsive and successful college, supporting 39.9 percent of all eArmyU program enrollments since the inception of the program in 2001. eArmyU is the U.S. Army’s distance learning college initiative. They lead the way ahead of all other institutions with support to the Army’s implementation of GoArmyED. Leaders of the other branches of the U.S. military voluntary education program have also found CTC, lead by Anderson, to be most supportive and responsive to their efforts to provide their Servicemembers with high quality education programs and services. CTC is the U.S. Navy’s prime contractor for Navy College Program for Afloat College Education (NCPACE). 

Anderson contributed significantly to cost efficiencies with lessons he learned in U.S. Air Force as director of Cost Programs and commander of the Air Force Cost Center at the Pentagon. As associate professor of economics and management at the Air Force Academy and professor of Economics at Air University, he trained the next generation of Air Force leaders in the intricacies of cost management locations.