Provost accepts position as NCTA dean

Dr. Ronald Rosati, who has been the Southeast Missouri State University provost since February of 2010, has accepted a job as the dean of the Nebraska College of Technical Agriculture in Curtis, Neb.

"I was quite excited," Rosati said. "It's a tremendous opportunity. [NCTA] is a wonderful institution. It focuses entirely on agriculture, which is a discipline that I have quite a passion for. I've worked in agriculture most of my career, so I'm very excited to be getting back to that. It's a very practical kind of curriculum, and I very much enjoy that. [Nebraska] is a very nice area of the country. The college is located in western Nebraska, very rural, about two hours from the Colorado border, a very pretty area, wonderful people, a great state support. The college is tied closely with the University of Nebraska, it's in the University of Nebraska system, and there's tremendous support from the system."

Rosati earned his undergraduate and graduate degrees in agriculture from Cornell University and his doctorate in agricultural education from Iowa State University.

Dr. Ronald Rosati. Southeast Missourian photo

"This is a two-year technical agriculture college, and I've worked in this area before," Rosati said. "I was a student back in the late 70s, actually, in a college like this. I've taught in a college like this before. I've been an administrator in a college like this, and I really like working with these kinds of programs, and so when this opportunity came along, it was too good to pass by."

Rosati has been the provost at other universities, including Illinois State University, Ohio State University and Iowa State University.

"I love what's going on at Southeast," Rosati said. "Southeast is an outstanding institution, also a wonderful place to work, and a place that's really going places, tremendous growth, great faculty, great administration, wonderful students, a very nice place to live. I was really torn about making this kind of a move, but once we made the decision to go, I was pleased to have the opportunity."

Rosati will join NCTA in July upon the NCTA Board of Regents approving his selection. Rosati was selected out of four finalists to replace the university's retiring dean. He also had been a finalist for the position of president of Southwest Minnesota State University in January.

NCTA is a two-year college where students earn an Associate of Applied Science degree in agriculture or an Associate of Science degree. Students also have the option to transfer credits to other universities.

University president Dr. Kenneth W. Dobbins released a statement via a university press release March 6.

"We have appreciated the skills and strengths Ron has brought to the position of provost at Southeast," Dobbins said. "We especially want to thank him for his leadership in the recent Higher Learning Commission reaffirmation of accreditation for our university. His background in agriculture and his experience in leading collaborations and partnerships will be a great benefit to the University of Nebraska system."

The provost is the chief academic officer for Southeast and is in charge of all planning and overseeing of academics, such as fall, spring and online courses. The provost also is in charge of all of the colleges at Southeast. The provost approves requests for hiring faculty members at Southeast and interviews candidates who are applying to be professors or administrators.

Rosati oversaw the HLC accreditation process and helped the faculty senate rewrite the faculty handbook during his time at Southeast. He also supervised the development of the online portion of Southeast's academics, which has expanded. While he was in charge, courses for the winter intercession began, which he said is now 100 percent online. He said the summer intercession is now about 80 percent online.

"There's online creeping into the regular-semester courses also," Rosati said.

He said the university doesn't want the fall and spring semester classes to completely go online.

"It's not easy leaving Southeast," Rosati said. "It's a great place to be. It's an institution that's really on the move. There are great things going on with infrastructure, the academic programs are very strong, there is wonderful faculty and administration. The funding situation has been a bit of a challenge, but we've been very creative in addressing it, and we've addressed it very well, and now things are looking a little bit better on the economic front. I think in the past five years or so Southeast has moved up a level in terms of its ranking and stature as an institution, and it's a top-ranked institution now, doing just an outstanding job. The future here is very bright. It's a great place to have spent some time. I'm very sad about leaving it."

Southeast's faculty handbook says that people interested in the provost position should have earned a doctorate, have experience teaching at the college level and have experience in an administrative setting. A search committee is made up of one faculty member selected from each of Southeast's colleges and schools, a student member selected by Student Government Association and two members of the committee selected by the university president. The committee selects the chairperson from the group.

After the committee is formed and applications are reviewed, the committee selects candidates and invites each of them to campus for two days to be interviewed and to view the university. The committee then selects three finalists after all the campus interviews are done and recommends them to the university president. The president selects the person and a request is sent to the Southeast Board of Regents to approve the nomination.