The Institute of Higher Education is pleased to announce the appointment of Erik C. Ness as assistant professor of higher education. Professor Ness comes to the University of Georgia from the faculty of the Department of Administrative and Policy Studies at the University of Pittsburgh where he also served as coordinator of the Higher Education Management program. Professor Ness conducts research on the politics of higher education, the public policy process, student financial aid, and the finance and governance of higher education systems. He earned a Ph.D. in education policy from Vanderbilt University and previously served as a policy analyst for the Tennessee Higher Education Commission. Professor Ness's recent research focusing on the political dynamics of the policymaking process through which states adopt merit-based scholarship programs has been published as a book, Merit Aid and the Politics of Education (Routledge, 2008), and in scholarly journals such as The Journal of Higher Education, Research in Higher Education, The Review of Higher Education, and Educational Policy.