James "Jim" Coleman, the new executive vice president of academic affairs and provost at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville
The University of Arkansas in Fayetteville on Tuesday announced that James “Jim” Coleman, provost and vice president for academic affairs at Northern Arizona University, has been appointed as executive vice chancellor for academic affairs and provost at UA.
He will succeed Ashok Saxena on Jan. 1. Saxena has served in that role since summer 2015.
Coleman will also be appointed a professor of biological sciences for the J. William Fulbright College of Arts & Sciences, pending the UA board of trustees’ approval.
“We are looking forward to welcoming a seasoned administrator to help us enter the new year, and implement the campus planning work we’ve spent the past year actively engaged in,” Chancellor Joseph Steinmetz said in a news release.
Coleman became the provost and vice president for academic affairs and a professor of biology at Northern Arizona University in August 2015.
“I look forward to engaging with all areas of campus and doing a deep dive into the culture to better understand the strengths that have led to the creation of the eight campus priorities,” Coleman said. “Ultimately, this work will lead to some signature initiatives for implementation and I’m pleased to be a part of it.”
Coleman has also served as dean of the College of Humanities & Sciences at Virginia Commonwealth University, vice provost for research at Rice University, vice chancellor for research at the University of Missouri and vice president for research and business development at the Desert Research Institute.
He was also program officer for ecological and evolutionary physiology at the National Science Foundation (NSF) and began his career as an assistant then associate professor of biology at Syracuse University.
Coleman has chaired the external advisory board for two of the state’s NSF Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research grants.
He has a doctorate in plant ecology from Yale University and received a bachelor’s degree in forestry from the University of Maine. Coleman also conducted postdoctoral research at Stanford and Harvard universities.
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