Robert H. Bruininks
Robert H. Bruininks is currently a professor at the University of Minnesota with joint appointments in the Humphrey School of Public Affairs and the departments of Educational Psychology and Organizational Leadership, Policy, and Development in the College of Education and Human Development.
He is president emeritus of the University of Minnesota. He holds the Regents Presidential Leadership Chair and has been honored with numerous awards, including the college’s Emma M. Birkmaier Professorship in Educational Leadership, the Minnesota Association of Secondary School Principals Service to Education Award, and a Kellogg Foundation National Leadership Fellowship. He is a current fellow and president emeritus of the American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities and has been elected a fellow of the American Psychological Association, the American Psychological Society, and the American Educational Research Association.
He is also a recognized national and international leader in higher education, serving as chair of the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities in 2008 and as a member of the J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board. He was named Executive of the Year by the Minneapolis St. Paul Business Journal in 2009 and Minnesotan of the Year by Minnesota Monthly in 2004.
As chair of Minnesota’s P-20 Partnership, he has focused on improving assessment and standards in K–12 education, particularly in mathematics and science. He holds graduate degrees from George Peabody College (now part of Vanderbilt University).
Dr. Bruininks has more than 40 years of experience in teaching, research, evaluation, and administration centered on human development, assessment and training, accountability, public policy research and development, and strategic improvement in the fields of prekindergarten through twelfth grade and higher education.
In 1985, he established the Institute on Community Integration, a University Center for Excellence in Developmental Disabilities that provides interdisciplinary training, exemplary services, and applied research for people with developmental disabilities and their families. He has also extensively advised government and service agencies. As a researcher, he has served as principal investigator on over $22 million in sponsored grants and contracts.
He has authored or co-authored nearly 90 journal articles, more than 70 book chapters, training materials, and nationally standardized tests. The author of the original Bruininks-Oseretsky Test of Motor Proficiency, Dr. Bruininks has published other test materials, including the Body Skills Curriculum (with Judy Werder), the Motor Profile (with John Rynders and Steven Ilmer), the Scales of Independent Behavior–Revised (with Richard Woodcock, Richard Weatherman, and Bradley Hill), the Inventory for Client and Agency Planning (with Bradley Hill, Richard Weatherman, and Richard Woodcock), the Checklist of Adaptive Living Skills (with Lanny Morreau), and the Adaptive Living Skills Curriculum (with Cheri Gilman, Jean Anderson, and Lanny Morreau).
He has a special interest in improving assessment, training, and service programs and in analyzing the impact of public education and human service policies on children and youth and their families.