George Justice, the dean of the MU graduate school, will be leaving the university to accept the position of dean of humanities in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Arizona State University, Provost Brian Foster announced last week.
“I’m sorry to see George leave,” Foster said in a press release. “He has provided excellent leadership for the Graduate School and has achieved a number of significant goals. We thank George for his contributions and wish him the best as he takes an important step in his career path.”
Justice said he joined the MU faculty in 2002 as a member of the English department. From there, he became assistant dean of the graduate school in 2006, becoming an associate dean a year later and interim dean two years after that. In 2010, after a national search was conducted, he was offered the position of dean.
As dean of the Graduate School, Justice said he tried to expand the reach of many programs to make them more useful to students.
“As far as the areas I’ve focused on, online was certainly one of them, but I’ve tried to help build up interdisciplinary programs, specifically the masters of public health program and the MU Informatics Institute,” Justice said. “I think I’ve done a good job of helping these programs reach more students.”
In an MU News Bureau news release, Justice said that, though he is looking forward to the new challenge that ASU provides, he is saddened by having to leave MU.
“It has been a great privilege to work at MU as a faculty member and as dean of the graduate school,” Justice said in the release. “Our university is blessed with outstanding students, brilliant faculty and ethical, dedicated leadership. Each day on campus provides me and our entire community with the opportunity of learning new things, developing new skills and making new contributions to knowledge.”
Under Justice’s guidance, the online programs offered by the Graduate School have increased significantly.
“I tried to work with programs around campus to encourage that they work to develop online programs with the help of Mizzou Online,” Justice said. “The role I had in the process would be facilitating curriculum reviews and encouraging programs to take the initiative to go online.”
Justice said he was nominated for the position of dean of humanities by a friend who is a faculty member at ASU. Justice sent in a letter of application and was chosen after a series of interviews and meetings. He was notified of the final position only a few days before the provost announced Justice’s decision.
In the release, Justice emphasized he felt the position gave him the ability to help make a difference at a forward-looking university in the area of higher education.