New chancellor hires Hank Foley as senior vice chancellor for research and graduate studies at MU.
University of Missouri Chancellor R. Bowen Loftin has an impressive resume of promoting and growing research that has prepared him to elevate MU’s status as a top-tier, AAU, land-grant research institution.
Loftin, who began at MU Feb. 1, previously served as president of the Texas A&M. Under his leadership, research expenditures at Texas A&M reached approximately $700 million annually, while a multi-billion dollar capital campaign garnered a school record $740 million in gifts during fiscal year 2013. Currently, Loftin is involved in the One Mizzou fundraising campaign, scheduled to go public in 2015–16.
Missouri, like Texas A&M, is a public land-grant research university and a member of the Association of American Universities (AAU) and the Southeastern Conference (SEC). Both universities share similar challenges: managing a general operating budget in the face of state funding cuts for higher education, developing more successful fundraising strategies, increasing economic development through faculty innovation, attracting high-caliber faculty, moving up from the bottom quartile of AAU rankings, balancing growing enrollment with quality education, effectively marketing university accomplishments, and increasing research donations.
To assist Loftin in his efforts to elevate MU’s already strong research reputation, he recently named Hank Foley as senior vice chancellor for research and graduate studies at MU. Foley also serves as executive vice president for academic affairs, research and economic development for the University of Missouri System.
In his role at MU, Foley will provide leadership for MU’s research operations. The Office of Research oversees the Division of Sponsored Programs, nine research centers, the MU Technology Management and Industry Relations Program, and the Office of Animal Research.
Foley served on the University of Delaware chemical engineering faculty for 14 years before heading to Penn State in 2000. In his tenure at Penn State, Foley served as department head, associate vice president for research and director of strategic initiatives, and dean of the College of Information Sciences and Technology. He has extensive industry experience, including working for American Cyanamid and consulting with companies such as Westvaco, Air Products, Monsanto, DuPont and Engelhard Corporation.
Loftin, formerly a professor of industrial and systems engineering, was named president of Texas A&M after serving as interim president for eight months. Prior to that, he served as vice-president of the university and chief executive officer of Texas A&M University’s branch campus in Galveston, where he also was a professor of maritime systems engineering. There, he brought stable funding and increased research to Galveston while managing 1,600 students and 400 faculty and staff with a fiscal budget of $45 million.
Before joining the Texas A&M University System, Loftin served as a professor of electrical and computer engineering and professor of computer science at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia, where he also was the university’s director of simulation programs and directed the school’s graduate programs in modeling and simulation. In addition, Loftin was the executive director of the Virginia Modeling, Analysis and Simulation Center. Earlier in his career, Loftin was a professor and chair of the Department of Computer Science and director of the NASA Virtual Environments Research Institute at the University of Houston, where he conducted pioneering research and completed classified NASA projects.
Loftin has been a frequent consultant to industry and government agencies in the areas of modeling and simulation, advanced training technologies, and scientific/engineering data visualization and has authored or co-authored more than 100 technical publications. Serving on numerous advisory committees and panels sponsored by governmental and professional organizations, Loftin has received many citations and honors, including the University of Houston-Downtown Award for Excellence in Teaching (once) and Service (twice), the American Association of Artificial Intelligence Award for an innovative application or artificial intelligence, NASA’s Space Act Award, the NASA Public Service Medal, and the 1995 NASA Invention of the Year Award.