GREENACRES, FL – J. Duane Meeks, Ph.D., has been named President and Chief Executive Officer of Potentia Academy, a private, not-for-profit school serving middle and high school students in Palm Beach County who struggle in traditional learning environments.

Dr. Meeks and his wife, Janice Meeks, founded Potentia Academy in 2009 as an education alternative for unique learners in middle and high school. Dr. Meeks served pro bono as Chair of the Board of Directors from its inception until his recent transition to day-to-day leadership of the school. 

As President and CEO of Potentia Academy, Dr. Meeks will be responsible for increasing fundraising, enrollment and awareness, overseeing the expansion of the school’s facilities and programs and creating functional strategic and transition plans.

Before transitioning to Potentia, Dr. Meeks enjoyed a long and distinguished career in higher education and in media production. His most recent academic appointment was at Palm Beach Atlantic University, which he joined in 2002 as associate professor of mass media. From 2006 to 2020 Dr. Meeks was the Interim Dean and then Dean of the School of Communication and Media after having served as the founding coordinator of the School’s Cinema-Television program. Under his leadership, the school launched programs in Cinema, Public Relations, Sports Broadcasting, Digital Storytelling, and Gaming & Interactive Design, as well as a robust internship program. His final administrative role at PBAU was as Associate Provost for Strategic Innovation during which time he was instrumental in developing a Bachelor of Science in Engineering and a Master of Medical Science in Physician Associate Studies.  At his retirement from the university, Dr. Meeks held the academic rank of Professor of Mass Media and was granted the title of Dean Emeritus in recognition of his long record of distinguished service to the institution. 

In recent years Dr. Meeks collegiate course offerings have been in the areas of screenwriting, motion picture editing, international cinema, and redemptive storytelling. He is an expert on the Communist infiltration in the motion picture industry in the 1930s and 1940s, and the resulting blacklist. In 2010, his dissertation on the subject won the Margaret A. Blanchard Doctoral Dissertation Prize from the American Journalism Historians Association. Dr. Meeks’ current research interests include redemptive storytelling, new media technologies, and the ethics of artificial intelligence. 

His many creative accomplishments include writing, producing, and directing numerous television commercials, corporate videos, music videos, television shows, and screenplays. He has served as executive producer and faculty advisor to scores of student films over the last thirty years. Projects that he has supervised or in which he has significantly participated have won numerous awards, including Academy and Cine Awards, and have screened at film festivals around the world and aired on national cable networks.

Dr. Meeks is a member or a past-member of the Learning Disabilities Association, National Association of Broadcasters, Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, the University Film and Video Association, the Broadcast Education Association, the American Journalism Historians Association, the Society of Professional Journalists, the National Communication Association, and the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication. 

Before arriving at Palm Beach Atlantic University in 2002, Dr. Meeks taught graduate courses in cinema and television studies at Regent University for fourteen years, where he served for a season as the Chair of the School of Cinema-Television and Theatre Arts within the College of Communication and the Arts. 

Dr. Meeks holds a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Toronto, a Master of Arts from Regent University, and a Ph.D. from the University of Maryland.

Dr. Meeks and his wife Janice have three adult children: Joshua, a property manager in Tampa; Jeremiah, a sheriff’s deputy in Escambia County; and Zechariah, a reserve firefighter-EMT in Palm Beach County. They are the proud grandparents of Jenna, Jack, Riley, Maverick, and Isaiah. 

For more information about Potentia Academy and its expansion plans, please contact Dr. Duane Meeks at 561.512.5242 or dmeeks@potentiaacademy.org.

ABOUT POTENTIA ACADEMY: Potentia Academy is an education alternative for unique learners where every student has the right to achieve his or her full learning potential. The private school located in Greenacres is designed exclusively to serve students in grades 5 through 12 who struggle in traditional learning environments, particularly in their mastery of math and reading skills. Highly qualified and caring teachers combine specialized curricula, unique teaching methods, appropriate accommodations, and small class sizes in a safe and nurturing environment to help students believe in themselves and in the future that awaits them.