Peter Smith is senior vice president of academic strategies and development for Kaplan Higher Eduction and is the former assistant director for education of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization. Smith also served as the founding president of California State University at Monterey Bay and the Community College of Vermont. He served as Vermont's lieutenant governor from 1982–1986 and was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1989. Dr. Smith is the author of the critically acclaimed The Quiet Crisis: How Higher Education Is Failing America.