W. Edward Folts received his undergraduate and master’s degrees from the University of Alabama and his Ph.D. from the University of Florida. After serving as a Grants Coordinator at the University of Florida and Assistant Professor at the University of North Texas, he joined the Sociology and Graduate Faculties at Appalachian State University in 1991. From 1991 to 2001 he was the Director of the Graduate Gerontology Program and from 1999 to 2001 he served as Director of both the Graduate Gerontology Program and the multidisciplinary Master of Arts in Social Science Program. In 2001 he was appointed Director of the Sociology Undergraduate Program. In 2004 he was asked to serve as Interim Department Chair and in 2005, after a national search, he was appointed Department Chair, a post he held until 2013.
In 2003 former Chair Dr. Lorin Baumhover successfully negotiated with the Corporation for National and Community Service to have Appalachian State University take over administrative responsibility for two externally funded Senior Corps Programs. Thus, the Appalachian Foster Grandparent Program and the Appalachian Senior Companion Program, operating together as Appalachian Senior Programs, were created. In 2004 Dr. Folts took over as Executive Director of both programs and as Principal Investigator of the federal, state, and local grants funding them. In the sixteen years he served as Executive Director of Appalachian Senior Programs, the total amount of external funding generated exceeded eleven-million dollars. In the last two years before his retirement in 2020, Dr. Folts served as Co-Executive Director and Co-PI with Dr. Amy Dellinger Page. Her willingness to take on this responsibility has materially benefitted both programs, the department, and the university.
In 2000, Drs. Folts and Baumhover were awarded a grant from the North Carolina Council on Developmental Disabilities to create a ten-year plan to address the issue of an aging population with developmental disabilities. Earlier in his career, Dr. Folts’ research involved housing for older adults. As a result, his work has appeared in The Journal of Gerontology, The Gerontologist, Research on Aging, Educational Gerontology, Housing the Elderly, The Journal of Elder Abuse and Neglect, The Journal of Health and Human Resources Administration, The Journal of Applied Gerontology, and Adult Residential Care Journal. He is also co-author of two books and co-editor of a volume on housing that is still used in some gerontology courses.