Midwestern State University announces new provost

University President Jesse W. Rogers has appointed Dr. Alisa White as the university's new provost effective July 15. White currently serves as professor and dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Texas at Tyler.

White earned her Bachelor of Arts from Lee College (now Lee University) and her Master of Science and Doctor of Philosophy degrees from the University of Tennessee.

She has taught in the area of mass communication at several universities including the University of Alaska Fairbanks, Louisiana State University, The University of West Georgia, and the University of Texas at Arlington.

White has served at the University of Texas at Tyler for the past five years, where the College of Arts and Sciences included 10 academic departments composed of 100 full-time faculty and 17 staff members with 1,300 majors and an $8 million budget. She also helped develop a Master of Arts in Communication. Proposals have been submitted to the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board for a Bachelor of Arts in Religion Studies and a Master of Science in Chemistry. White led the college assessment efforts for SACS re-affirmation of accreditation and led the university's strategic planning effort to develop Strategic Plan for 2009-2015. Before taking on her responsibilities as dean, she taught courses in advertising and public relations in addition to re-designing the curriculum in the Department of Communication, which was influential in affecting a 26-percent increase in journalism majors in one year.

"I'm very happy for this opportunity. This is a real responsibility. I want to help people move forward. White said. "When meeting people during the process, everyone was student focused and bragged on the university. There's a strong sense of campus pride."

White is currently a member of the Editorial Advisory Board of the Asia Pacific Media Educator, a director of Discovery Science Place Board in Tyler, a trustee for Education Foundation Tenth District (TX, OK, LA, AR) of American Advertising Federation, and a member of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication. 

"Dr. White was one of the search committee's top choices from the beginning of the candidate review process. She emerged from the on-campus interviews as the very top choice,"  stated Dr. Robert Clark, Vice President for Institutional Effectiveness and chair of the search committee.