Bowling Green State University has hired Dr. Joe B. Whitehead as Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs at Bowling Green State University.
In a letter to the university community, President Rodney Rogers stated: “He will lead and support our faculty, implement academic priorities and oversee our academic programs and resources.”
Whitehead will assume his new duties on Jan. 22.
He currently is professor of physics at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical University (NCAT) and senior adviser for research with the University of North Carolina System, North Carolina’s state office of higher education, where he manages an extensive portfolio of research initiatives. He has served as provost and vice chancellor for academic affairs at NCAT, and as dean of the College of Science and Technology at the University of Southern Mississippi.
Rogers wrote: “As provost at NCAT, he was successful in growing enrollment and retention, improving student success and raising the university’s research profile. As dean at Southern Mississippi, he led the development of new programs in engineering, science and logistics, and innovative initiatives to support students and increase research, scholarship and creative activities.”
Whitehead is a physicist specializing in liquid crystal and polymer materials and has held faculty appointments both in physics and chemistry.
Whitehead earned both his master’s and doctorate in physics from Kent State University.
Rogers served as provost at BGSU until he was first appointed interim president upon the retirement of President Mary Ellen Mazey. The BGSU Board of Trustees appointed him president on Feb. 28. John Fischer has been serving as interim provost.
Rogers wrote of Fischer: “He has helped us not only to maintain our momentum but to launch promising new programs that raise our national profile and support our mission as a public university.”
