Dr. Rachelle Darabi, Associate Provost for Student Development and Public Affairs, will be retiring on August 1, 2020. We all give Rachelle our thanks and our congratulations for her 12 years of exemplary service to the MSU community.

With this retirement, two of the current academic affairs staff will take on additional leadership roles.  Dr. Kelly Wood will become Associate Provost for Student Success, and Dr. Keri Franklin will be Associate Provost for Public Affairs and Assessment. As a part of this restructuring, the Faculty Center for Teaching and Learning will report to the Provost. These organizational changes will result in considerable cost savings as well as an alignment of related functions.

Dr. Wood, currently the Executive Director or the Center for Academic Success and Transition, joined the University in 1995 as Assistant Professor of Communication. She was promoted to Professor in 2014 and served as Head of the Department of Communications from 2007 to 2011. Dr. Franklin, currently the Director of Assessment, Center for Writing in College, Career, and Community, and Interim Director of the Center for Community Engagement, joined the University in 2005 as Assistant Professor of English in 2005 and was promoted to Professor in 2016. She has served as the Director of Assessment since December 2012. In the last few years, Dr. Franklin guided the university’s Higher Learning Commission Assurance Review to meet the Criteria for Accreditation.