I’m pleased to announce Dr. Clarenda Phillips as our new provost. Shes will start on July 1.

Dr. Phillips has more than 30 years of higher education experience. She has served as faculty, department chair, vice provost and more recently, provost and vice president for academic affairs.

She has a deep understanding of higher education, a wealth of experience and an enthusiastic vision for the future. Her strategic vision of leveraging technology while maintaining personal connections with students is exactly what Missouri State needs as we work to demonstrate Missouri State’s value in today’s changing landscape.

Each of our five candidates met with:

• The search committee
• Administrative Council
• The deans and associate provosts
• The provost office administrative team
• Roundtable with Faculty Senate, Staff Senate and Student Government Association leadership teams

I met with each candidate one-on-one, took them to dinner to have a more relaxed discussion and attended each candidate forum. I was presented with the survey results on Friday. I met with search committee chairs Brad Bodenhausen and Dr. Marjorie Shavers for feedback from the search committee.

As I hope you can see, this was a detailed, collective process in the selection of our next provost.

A huge thank you to Brad, Marjorie and the search committee. They provided us with a slate of outstanding candidates, making my decision a hard one. And thanks to all who participated either in small groups or in attending the public forums and completing surveys. This was an important decision, and your input was invaluable.

Thank you to Dr. Tammy Jahnke for serving as interim provost over the last several months.  She’ll continue in this role through June.

I’m excited to welcome Dr. Phillips to campus. You may see her around in the next several months as she travels to Springfield to look for housing and drop by campus.

Thanks for checking in. It’s a great day to be a Bear!

Biff