Bill Kincaid
Bill Kincaid has been named acting chancellor of the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville, effective immediately, following Chancellor Joe Steinmetz’s sudden resignation on Friday.
Kincaid previously served as managing associate general counsel for the flagship campus.
UA System President Donald Bobbitt said Kincaid would serve in the role for “a few weeks” while Bobbitt visits with university stakeholders to identify the best person to lead the campus permanently.
The president announced this decision in a letter to the campus on Monday.
“I am committed to working with the board of trustees, the campus community, and all supporters of the university in pursuing a path to finding the next chancellor of the University of Arkansas,” Bobbitt wrote. “While I know the decision by Chancellor Steinmetz to resign from his position last week came as a surprise to many, the University of Arkansas remains in a strong position and prepared for a bright future.”
Steinmetz had served as the school’s chancellor since January 2016 and earned a base salary of $464,000 per year.
Kincaid, 55, has served as associate general counsel at the institution since 2000, and as managing associate general counsel since 2018.
He is a 1988 honors graduate of Yale University and obtained his law degree in 1993 from the University of Virginia. Kincaid also holds a master’s degree in public affairs from Princeton University, through a joint program.
Before joining the UA, he worked with the U.S. Department of Education and the White House Domestic Policy Council. He also previously served as a law clerk to the Richard Arnold, who at that time was chief judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit.
Kincaid is also the son of the late Diane Blair, a longtime professor of political science at the UA who died in 2000. The university named a center for her, the Diane D. Blair Center of Southern Politics and Society.
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