UA gives honors to outgoing president
Residence to be renamed for him
RYAN ANDERSON
FAYETTEVILLE — The University of Arkansas System board of trustees named retiring President Donald Bobbitt as president emeritus and voted to name the president’s residence after him Friday.
Bobbitt, who served as president for nearly 13 years, will become president emeritus effective Jan. 15, 2025, his retirement date, said trustee Kevin Crass, who was visibly emotional as he read a resolution saluting Bobbitt — and his wife, Susan — for their years of service. New system President Jay Silveria — whom the board officially tabbed last week — and his successors will live in “The Bobbitt House” on the system’s Cammack Campus in Little Rock.
Bobbitt — also visibly emotional at the “quite unexpected” gesture — thanked trustees, his wife and all those who work in the system, noting that he never struggled to get up in the morning and go to work because of the system’s excellent people and admirable mission.
“I’ve devoted my life to education and value its goals,” said Bobbitt, 68. Being system president “has
been the highest honor of my career and granted great “privileges.”
Bobbitt has led “with such professionalism and humility,” noted Kelly Eichler, who chairs the board of trustees. “It’s inspiring.”
Bobbitt began his tenure as president on Nov. 1, 2011, succeeding B. Alan Sugg, who led the system for 21 years before his retirement. The UA System Administration building on the Cammack Campus is named after Sugg.
Bobbitt is especially proud of how cohesive the system has become under his leadership, as it was formerly “more of a loose confederation” of various parts, he said. The whole is “stronger than its parts,” as everyone — from he and the trustees, to members of individual campuses — have bought into the idea of a system “working together.”
He deflected credit for the system’s successes, insisting it belongs more to the workers in the system office and on campuses. He also praised all the employees, especially in the system office, who set aside various tragedies through the years to “continue the work unabated.”
His tenure included the implementation of Project One, bringing the system’s institutions onto the Workday platform to manage all finance, human resources, academic and student information functions, which led to better alignment and easier exchange of data among institutions, according to the system. Other system-wide projects include implementing collective contracting for the Blackboard learning management system, entering into an agreement for solar services last year with Scenic Hill Solar estimated to save the system $150 million over 25 years, standardizing common course numbering to make transferring among institutions easier for students, creating the UA System Workforce Response and Training Center and developing a workforce development action plan.
He also expanded the
system’s online learning offerings, launching the state’s first 100% online institution, eVersity, in 2015, which later merged and expanded with the acquired University of Arkansas Grantham in 2021. Bobbitt’s tenure saw the growth of new leadership across the system’s campuses, divisions and units, resulting in the most diverse leadership team in system history.
During his tenure, the University of Arkansas-Pulaski Technical College, the University of Arkansas Community College at Rich Mountain and the University of Arkansas-East Arkansas Community College were all added to the system. Trustees finalized the latter addition at this week’s meeting in Fayetteville, after the college received final approval from the Higher Learning Commission to join the UA System earlier this month.
The college and system had been working together to meet state and federal requirements for the merger since this spring, a multi-step process with final approval required from the HLC, one of six regional accrediting bodies that includes more than 950 member colleges and universities nationwide, according to Lindsay Midkiff, the college’s associate vice president for public relations and community programs. The college received approval from the HLC for the continuation of accreditation as the institution becomes a member of the UA System, and the final step of the membership process was to close the transaction within 30 days of the HLC action, which the college and system did this week.
The college achieved its HLC credentialing with relative “lightning speed,” and evaluators were highly complimentary, said Chancellor Cathie Cline. Though “already a great college, (we made) a strategic choice to improve what we’re doing for the state together” with the UA System.
The HLC approval process required the college and system to submit a Change of Control application and participate in a site review visit by HLC peer reviewers on campus in August, according to Midkiff. The college’s leadership, faculty, staff, educational programs and cultural enrichment will not change, with the college continuing to manage its own budget and personnel under the leadership of Cline and a local Board of Visitors, who will continue to advise on matters related to budgets and programming.
The two-year college, which began holding classes in 1974, is based in Forrest City and the closest other UA System member school is Phillips Community College of the University of Arkansas. Its Helena-West Helena campus is roughly 40 miles from Forrest City.
Bobbitt is the inaugural holder of the endowed chair in presidential leadership at the UA System, established in 2015 by the late Charles E. Scharlau, former chairman and CEO of Southwestern Energy Co. and past chairman of the UA board of trustees. An assistant professor in the department of chemistry and biochemistry at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, earlier in his career, Bobbitt has served as chair of a National Institutes of Health Study Section for eight years, and he was inducted as a fellow into the National Academy of Inventors based on his patents and emphasis on patenting, innovation and entrepreneurship as evaluation criteria for promotion and tenure in 2015.
Bobbitt, who was provost and vice president for academic affairs at the University of Texas at Arlington from 2008-2011 before taking charge of the UA System, spent 17 years as an administrator and faculty member at UA-Fayetteville before being named dean of the J. William Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences, and he earned the University of Arkansas Alumni Association Award in Teaching and the Fulbright College Master Teacher Award. A recipient of the Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation Teacher-Scholar Fellowship from 1988-93, Bobbitt has a Bachelor of Science in chemistry with highest honors from UA-Fayetteville and a doctorate in chemistry from Iowa State University.
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2024-11-23T08:00:00.0000000Z
2024-11-23T08:00:00.0000000Z
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