Arcadia Appoints Eric Meadows as Director of the University’s Melbourne Center and Australian Programs

By Purnell T. Cropper | January 16, 2014

The College of Global Studies at Arcadia University is pleased to announce the appointment of Dr. Eric Meadows as director of the University’s Melbourne Center and Australian Programs. Meadows brings to The College more than 40 years of significant and broad-based administrative, managerial, and teaching experience in Australian higher education and in the field of international education.

Meadows began his professional career with the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and worked with the Australian High Commission in New Delhi and the Australian Embassy in Tel Aviv, where he was deputy head of Mission. He then moved from diplomatic service into the arena of international education, serving as deputy head of the UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) secretariat in the Department of Education in Australia.

Meadows followed his time at the Department of Education with a succession of senior administrative roles at a number of Australia’s leading universities. Following 10 years of service as director of the International Office and director of External Relations at the University of Wollongong, Meadows moved to the University of Melbourne, where he served as deputy principal (International Programs), running not only the university’s international relations but also its overseas student recruitment. He also served as pro vice-chancellor (International) at Deakin University, where he also became a research fellow in the Faculty of Arts and defended his dissertation on “A Diplomatic History of Australia’s Relations with India, 1944-1964.”

Meadows has published in the field of diplomatic history and international education, writing a history of Australia’s educational relations overseas. His appointment coincides with the final build-out of Arcadia’s new premises in Melbourne; the Center is now located conveniently in the St. Kilda suburb of Melbourne, about a 20-minute commute from the University of Melbourne and 15 minutes from the Victorian College of the Arts and Music.