From the archiveDirector bio, versions of March 2007 and 2009 (captured 2012)
About Mark E. Emblidge, Ph.D.
Director. Office address on the 2009 page: 413 Stuart Circle, Suite 303, Richmond, VA 23220. (Phone and e-mail removed in this archive.)
Dr. Mark Emblidge joined Virginia Commonwealth University in 2004. He currently serves as an affiliate professor in the University’s School of Education and as Director of The Literacy Institute at VCU, for which he serves as co-principal investigator of two $4.49 million federal Early Reading First grants. Dr. Emblidge’s research focuses on adult and family literacy, high school reform, and at-risk children.
Dr. Emblidge has been closely involved with a variety of state and national educational issues over the past twenty years. He has served as the founding director of the Virginia Literacy Foundation since its inception in 1987. In 1994, Emblidge was elected to the first elected school board in Richmond, Virginia, where he served for four terms and was elected three times to serve as chairman. In 1995, President Bill Clinton appointed Dr. Emblidge to the board of the National Institute for Literacy. He became the Institute’s chair in 1998 and served in that position until the end of his term in 2002, when Virginia Governor Mark Warner appointed him to the Virginia State Board of Education. This was followed in 2004 with a four-year appointment to the Southern Regional Education Board (SREB). In 2006, Governor Timothy Kaine re-appointed Dr. Emblidge to the State Board of Education, after which Emblidge was elected President by the members of the Board. In June 2009, Dr. Emblidge was elected to serve as vice chair of SREB.
Dr. Emblidge received his Ph.D. and his Master’s Degree in Education from the University of Virginia and a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science from Gordon College in Wenham, Massachusetts.
He sat on the Institute’s own advisory board as well; the 2010 and 2013 lists are on Directors and Board.
How the bio changed
The March 2007 version of this page described him as manager and co-principal investigator of “a $3.7 million federal Early Reading First grant”, the first Richmond award. By 2009 the text referred to two $4.49 million grants, and the sentence about the SREB vice chair election was added. The 2009 press item carries the SREB announcement in full, and his 2011 op-ed on adult illiteracy in Virginia is summarized in the press section.
Added in 2026
Later public records, chiefly his Wikipedia biography, add that Governor Kaine appointed him to the board of trustees of the Library of Virginia in 2009, and that he became the board’s chair in 2013. By 2013 the Institute’s own advisory board list identified him as Executive Director of the Virginia Literacy Foundation rather than as the Institute’s director. This archive does not track his activities after the site went quiet.
Questions readers ask
What did Mark Emblidge do at the Literacy Institute?
He was its director and an affiliate professor in VCU's School of Education from 2004, and served as co-principal investigator on the Institute's federal Early Reading First grants.
Which other posts did he hold?
Founding director of the Virginia Literacy Foundation (1987), four terms on the Richmond School Board, chair of the National Institute for Literacy board (1998–2002), member and later president of the Virginia State Board of Education, and vice chair of the Southern Regional Education Board from June 2009.