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Donald Bobbitt Wants Karla Hughes as UAM Chancellor

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University of Arkansas System President Donald Bobbitt announced Friday that he will recommend Karla Hughes, Ph.D., to the Board of Trustees of the University of Arkansas System as chancellor of the University of Arkansas at Monticello.

Hughes, 64, is the executive vice president and provost of the University of Louisiana System and will begin at UAM on Jan. 15, 2016. She would receive a salary of $250,000 at UAM.

“Our campus in Monticello is uniquely intertwined with its regional economic and community needs, and after a thorough search I am confident that Dr. Hughes’ skillset is an excellent fit and I know she will help lead the university toward an exciting future,” Bobbitt said in a news release. “She brings a wealth of experience operating in leadership roles and understands the benefits and challenges of operating within a large statewide university system for the betterment of the students and communities it serves.”

In her current position as executive vice president and provost of the largest university system in Louisiana, Hughes worked to support nine regional, comprehensive state universities that serve nearly 90,000 students with an annual budget of $750 million.

During her career, Hughes has held academic appointments at the University of Missouri, Virginia Polytechnic and State (Virginia Tech), East Carolina, Kansas State, Middle Tennessee State and Morehead State Universities, including three as a tenured professor, and has also developed professional relationships with faculty and administrators at six historically black universities.

In the 15 years that Hughes held statewide outreach appointments in Kansas and Missouri, she developed the first computerized programs for the Missouri Cooperative Extension, and her alternative agriculture enterprise was recognized by the University of Missouri System president as among the state’s 10-best economic development programs.

She has been recognized for her outreach and coalition-building skills when the Intergenerational Community Center that she organized in 2004 through a partnership between a community college, city government and her college at East Carolina University earned the national Association of Public and Land-grant Universities’ C. Peter Magrath University/Community Engagement Award.

Hughes holds a doctor of philosophy degree in agriculture (animal science/food safety) from the University of Tennessee-Knoxville, as well as master and bachelor of science degrees in nutrition and food science from Kansas State University. She has also completed postgraduate work at the University of Missouri-Columbia in personnel administration. When she left East Carolina University, she was granted professor emerita status.

A search committee at UAM has been working with a national search firm, Witt-Kieffer, to identify candidates since Jack Lassiter announced he was stepping down last fall and ultimately retired Jan. 5. Lassiter became UAM’s 11th chief executive officer on July 1, 2004. Jay Jones, vice chancellor for finance and administration at UAM, has been serving as interim chancellor.

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