Update: June 11, 2020: Leeder has decided to remain in Georgia and has declined the ATU job.
Mike Leeder will become the new director of athletics at Arkansas Tech University in Russellville effective July 1, ATU President Robin Bowen announced last week. Leeder will head a department that offers 11 sports at the NCAA Division II level: baseball, men’s basketball, women’s basketball, women’s cross-country, football, men’s golf, women’s golf, softball, women’s tennis, women’s track and field and volleyball. Arkansas Tech won the GAC All-Sports Trophy as the top overall athletics program in the Great American Conference in 2012-2016 and 2018.
“Intercollegiate athletics is an integral factor in building and maintaining a cohesive culture within a university,” Bowen said in a news release. “Arkansas Tech University is committed as an institution, and I am personally committed, to continue the winning tradition of Wonder Boys and Golden Suns athletics.”
Leeder has been director of athletics at NCAA Division II member Georgia Southwestern State University since June 2014. He was named head men’s basketball coach at Georgia Southwestern in 2006. He coached the Hurricanes to two NCAA Division II Tournament appearances and 13 weeks in the National Association of Basketball Coaches NCAA Division II top 25 during his tenure as coach. In 2016, after two years serving concurrently as director of athletics and head men’s basketball coach at Georgia Southwestern, Leeder stepped down from coaching to focus on his director of athletics role. In six years as director of athletics at Georgia Southwestern, Leeder formed corporate and private partnerships that yielded increased scholarship funding for student-athletes. His career as a men’s basketball coach has also included stints as assistant men’s basketball coach at Tallahassee Community College, director of athletics and head men’s basketball coach at Thomas University, associate head men’s basketball coach at Kentucky Wesleyan College and head coach at Longwood University.
Leeder earned a bachelor’s degree in history from Florida State University and a master’s degree in sports management from Nova Southeastern University.
Amy Baldwin, director of the University of Central Arkansas’ Department of Student Transitions, is one of 10 people nationwide to receive the 2020 Outstanding First-Year Student Advocate Award from the National Resource Center for the First-Year Experience & Students in Transition. Baldwin is the only person from an Arkansas college or university to receive the award.
Dr. Laura James, director of the UAMS Translational Research Institute, has been elected to the National Association for Clinical & Translational Science board of directors. James has been director of the institute since 2014 and is UAMS associate vice chancellor for clinical and translational research. She has a 25-year history of translational research in clinical pharmacology and toxicology at UAMS and Arkansas Children’s Hospital. As a clinician-scientist and founder of the startup company Acetaminophen Toxicity Diagnostics LLC, she is leading the development of a rapid diagnostic test for acetaminophen liver injury. In 2014 she was named an inaugural fellow of the Arkansas Research Alliance.
See more of this week’s Movers & Shakers, and submit your own announcement at ArkansasBusiness.com/Movers.
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