A-State Names Mickey Latour Dean of Agriculture College

Mickey Latour

Veteran agriculture researcher Mickey Latour has been named dean of the College of Agriculture at Arkansas State University in Jonesboro, effective July 1.

A Ph.D. who served as a full professor at both Purdue University and Southern Illinois University earlier in his career, Latour was dean of the College of Agricultural Sciences at SIU in Carbondale for five years.

He earned his master’s and doctorate in animal science at Mississippi State University, and completed his undergraduate work at Southeastern Louisiana University in Hammond.

Latour was an associate dean of Purdue University’s extended campus in West Lafayette, Indiana, and director of distance learning there, an experience that might serve him well if the current coronavirus crisis lingers.

He joined SIU in 2012, serving as dean until 2017, when he returned to the classroom. Latour was co-primary investigator on four federal grants totaling almost $700,000, and several state, other government agency, or private sector-supported research grants, officials said.

During his postdoctoral research, he was a fellow with the National Institutes of Health at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.  His research area is lipid metabolism.