Michael Fred Adams (born March 25, 1948) is an American former political staffer, educator, and academic administrator.

After an unsuccessful run for the House of Representatives in 1980, he worked as a senior advisor to Governor of Tennessee Lamar Alexander.

At Centre, he added several degree programs, completed a $60 million fundraiser, renovated and improved many buildings on campus, and tripled the school's endowment.

[9] Adams' first career experience was in politics; he worked as a staffer for Howard Baker, the Senate minority leader, from 1974 to 1979.

[9] Adams was the Republican nominee for Congress in Tennessee's 5th congressional district but lost the general election to the incumbent Democratic representative Bill Boner.

[10] From 1980 to 1982, Adams was a senior advisor to Lamar Alexander, then the governor of Tennessee,[9] specifically as the deputy commissioner of economic and community development.

[11] The former fraternity houses were converted into new dormitory buildings, named after Centre alumni and important figures in the history of the college, including Cooper Hall (for U.S.

[12] The college added multiple degree offerings, including anthropology and sociology, computer science, and classics.

[9] Fundraising was also a major emphasis of Adams' administration; Centre received multiple large research initiative grants from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and the National Science Foundation, respectively, and outraised a $60 million goal as part of their Front and Centre fundraising campaign.

[16][3] Adams applied for the presidency at the University of Georgia (UGA), left vacant by the resignation of Chuck Knapp in 1996.

[24] In July 2003, the university underwent an audit from Deloitte & Touche to investigate issues including Adams' expenses.

[29] In July 2010, athletic director Damon Evans, whom Adams hired to replace Dooley, was arrested for DUI and resigned as a result.

[30] In spite of the scandals that took place within the Georgia athletic department during Adams' tenure, which also included NCAA violations for academic fraud that took place under the watch of head men's basketball coach Jim Harrick,[31] UGA teams won nineteen national championships and athletic department revenue grew from $25.7 million to a projected $92.1 million.

[32] This was the conclusion of a plan that initially included the dissolution of the Grady College of Journalism, though protest from faculty and students ultimately forced Adams to scrap that portion of the project.

[36] During this time, he attracted attention by publicly announcing his support for an eight-team playoff championship system for college football.

[7] After leaving Georgia, Adams returned to Pepperdine for a three-year term as the university's chancellor from August 1, 2015, to July 31, 2018.

[40][7] He was the second-ranking member of the school's administration and worked directly for university president Andrew K. Benton, whom Adams first hired during his first stint at Pepperdine.