Fitchburg State President Robert V. Antonucci is joining the Division III Presidents Council, effective in August.

He will complete the unexpired term of former Williams President Morton Schapiro, who will become president in September at Northwestern. After completing that term in January 2011, Antonucci is eligible for re-election to a full four-year term.

Antonucci previously represented the Massachusetts State College Athletic Conference as a member of the Division III Chancellors and Presidents Advisory Group.

He became president at Fitchburg State, his alma mater, in 2003.

The former public schools administrator served from 1992 to 1998 as Massachusetts commissioner of education, where he oversaw reforms of the state’s education finance system, school governance, curriculum development and charter schools.

Before returning to Fitchburg State, he was president and chief executive officer of Harcourt Learning Direct and Harcourt Higher Education and chief executive officer of Harcourt eLearning and the California College for Health Sciences, then was president of the school group at Riverdeep – The Learning Company.

In addition to degrees from Fitchburg State, he holds a doctorate in education from Boston University, where he was an adjunct faculty member from 1994 to 1998.