Kenneth Edward Peacock Biography
Dr. Kenneth E. Peacock became Appalachian State University’s sixth chancellor in July 2004. During his brief tenure, the University has experienced significant growth in several areas while the academic quality has also continued to advance, directing extensive national attention to Appalachian. The University has become a destination choice with our State’s brightest and best high school graduates yielding the 2007-08 freshman class as the largest, most diverse, and most competitive in the history of Appalachian.
In the nearly three years since Chancellor Peacock assumed office, Appalachian has raised more than $27 million in private funding. Appalachian Access, a new University scholarship program offering North Carolina’s low-income students living at or below the poverty level a four-year university education debt-free, will be awarded to members of this year’s freshman class for the first time. Additionally, under Chancellor Peacock’s leadership, more than $156 million in capital improvements and new construction has been completed with another $111 million worth of construction projects currently underway.
Prior to his appointment as chancellor, Dr. Peacock served at Appalachian as interim provost and executive vice chancellor as well as dean of the Walker College of Business where he had first taken a faculty position in the Department of Accounting in 1983. Previously, he taught at the McIntire School of Commerce at the University of Virginia and worked for the accounting firm of Price Waterhouse & Co. in their Winston-Salem and Charlotte offices. Chancellor Peacock received his undergraduate degree in accounting at Mars Hill College and his master’s and doctorate degrees in accounting at Louisiana State University. He is a native of Rocky Mount, and he and his wife, Rosanne, have two sons.
