Commissioner of Education Nomination of William Lee Smith.

The President today announced that he will nominate William Lee Smith, of Maryland, to be Commissioner of Education. He would replace Ernest Boyer, resigned. This position will be abolished when the Department of Education is activated in 1980.

Smith has been Director of the Teacher Corps at the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare since 1973.

He was born January 3, 1929, in Boston, Mass. He received a B.A. from Wiley College in 1949, an M. Ed. from Massachusetts State Teachers College in 1955, and a Ph.D. from Case Western Reserve University in 1970.

Smith was a social group-worker from 1954 to 1956. He was with the Cleveland, Ohio, public schools from 1956 to 1968, as a high school teacher, guidance counselor, and principal. From 1968 to 1969, he was executive director of the Pace Association (Program of Action by Citizens in Education ) in Cleveland.

Smith joined the U.S. Office of Education at HEW in 1969 as Chief of the Career Opportunity Program. He served subsequently as Director of the Division of School Programs, Acting Director of the Teacher Corps, Associate Commissioner for Educational Personnel Development and Director of the National Center for Improvement of Educational Systems, Acting Deputy Commissioner for Development, and Associate Commissioner for Career Education.

Smith has served as Chairman of the U.S. Delegation to the International Management Training on Educational Change Training Program of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in Oslo, Norway, and the U.S. Delegation to the OECD Conference on Teacher Policy in Paris, France. He has received numerous awards for his work in education.