Pat Akos

Dr. Pat Akos serves as Associate Vice Provost for Student Success and University Honors Department Head in the Division of Student Success at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Involved in the division’s nationally recognized departments, his leadership continues to position the university as a national model for innovative honors education, undergraduate achievement, and student success.

As associate vice provost for student success, Pat leads the elevation of the division’s undergraduate research, competitive fellowships, and honors initiatives, guiding curriculum innovation, student support, and talent development to enhance the university’s reputation among peer institutions and nationally. He also holds a professorial appointment in the College of Education, Health, and Human Sciences. His approach to growth and progress is defined by a strategic focus on student success, talent development, and institutional transformation to attract, admit, and retain the brightest students from across the state and beyond.

At the center of Pat’s career is a focus on implementing strengths based and humanistic approaches to career development, educational transition, and student well-being. Prior to joining the university, he served more than twenty years as a professor at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, learning and influencing counseling research literature through direct student engagement. A career spanning leadership in K-12 education, clinical mental health counseling, higher education, and national professional organizations, he leads with an expertise grounded in scholarship and data-driven results to ensure progress toward university goals. His recent scholarship advances work in honors education, student success, and undergraduate learning, building on a career of more than 100 publications, including more than 80 refereed journal articles and two books, and national recognition among the top contributors to the counseling research literature.

Since arriving in the role, Pat has led a period of significant growth and national distinction. Under his leadership, University Honors has been reimagined through a new interdisciplinary curriculum, expanded college partnerships, stronger student support systems, and a vision for honors that is both highly selective and aligned with Tennessee’s land-grant mission. This work contributed to University Honors rising from the mid-30s nationally to No. 8 among public university honors programs in the College Transitions rankings, which assess academic selectivity, student benefits, curricular rigor, and honors student outcomes.

The Office of Undergraduate Research and Fellowships has sustained UT’s distinction as a Fulbright Top Producing Institution for eight consecutive years while supporting students who have earned nationally competitive awards, including the Churchill Scholarship, Boren Awards, Goldwater Scholarships, NSF Graduate Research Fellowships, Truman, and other prestigious honors. These achievements reflect a commitment to developing talent at scale and ensuring that students from a public flagship university can compete successfully on the national and global stage.

Education: PhD in counselor education, University of Virginia; master’s in higher education, Morehead State University; bachelor’s in human and organizational development and secondary education, Vanderbilt University.

CliftonStrengths: Relator, Maximizer, Ideation, Individualization, Futuristic.