_To the members of the committee responsible for selecting MU’s next chancellor:_
This is pretty obvious, but you have a massive decision in front of you.
Brady Deaton, who officially retired as MU’s chancellor last Friday, left a University of Missouri significantly different from the institution he inherited in 2004. This university, like most American public universities, is facing unprecedented challenges — from budget cuts to technology evolutions to a major shift in the role and function of higher education.
As chancellor, Deaton tackled a wide range of issues. His progress, while substantial, is unfinished, and his successor, whom you have been working to select for several months now, will be responsible for continuing this work.
We urge you to look to Deaton when choosing the next chancellor. He embodies much of what we feel the ideal occupant of the office should be, and MU would benefit greatly from you selecting someone reminiscent of him.
Someone who, first and foremost, believes in the power of education and will work to ensure every student who enrolls at MU receives the best possible education from start to finish.
Someone who will fight, like a tiger, for students and faculty — who will advocate for them to legislators, create connections and opportunities for them around the world and foster a campus culture of communication and openness.
Someone who will keep composure and loyalty in times of stress and crisis, leading MU by example, leading MU through character.
Someone who will seek a visible presence not only on campus but across the state of Missouri, in keeping with MU’s role as the state’s land-grant university, and [prioritize Missouri’s own brightest students as part of the institutional mission to serve this state’s residents](https://www.themaneater.com/stories/2013/9/25/university-should-carefully-consider-value-increas/).
Someone who, while maintaining their pride in this university, will push us to improve ourselves and those around us, remembering [MU’s imperfect past](https://www.themaneater.com/stories/2013/10/30/two-homecomings-celebrate-and-remember-more-comple/) and understanding its present evolution of diversity and continuing struggle toward making an inclusive and welcome environment for all.
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The chancellor you are selecting will take office at a critical time for our university. He or she will have to make many decisions that will have a long-lasting impact here and could well determine how MU survives and adapts to the changing culture of higher education in the 21st century.
Declining state funding in part led Deaton to focus on expanding MU’s student body like never before and to rely on fundraising to help this campus modernize and attract the brightest individuals it could. The former action has resulted in a university experiencing a wide range of growing pains, and the latter gives us some clue as to how Deaton’s successor could help ease those pains.
As [we discussed in an editorial last week](https://www.themaneater.com/stories/2013/11/13/columbia-and-mu-need-unified-master-plan-growth/), increased enrollment causes increased demand for on- and off-campus housing, university facilities and course offerings, as well as adding to smaller issues such as parking and dining hall space. This, in turn, has lead to a variety of further effects with which the next chancellor must deal.
He or she must ensure the [Residential Life Master Plan](http://reslife.missouri.edu/RLMPnew/), which the university has been carrying out since 2006, is executed properly, and determine whether its current plans will satisfy MU’s constant “record freshman classes,” which have resulted in overcrowding and provisional housing for many students.
He or she must work with the city of Columbia to establish stronger partnership and communication [as student-geared housing skyrockets in Columbia](https://www.themaneater.com/stories/2013/8/21/student-housing-should-not-be-game-chance/) and growth leads to campus expansion like the new Mizzou North building.
He or she must choose whether MU continues to hold huge, impersonal lecture classes that only serve to cycle students through the material without challenging them to grow, and whether it continues to prioritize non-tenured faculty for teaching purposes rather than tenured faculty.
And, ultimately, he or she must figure out how to pay for it all. With dangerous funding cuts to education being proposed far too often by ignorant lawmakers, it is likely guaranteed the Statehouse will not be giving MU the level of funding it really needs anytime soon. As aforementioned, this has been remedied through increasing enrollment and increasing donations.
The chancellor’s role as fundraiser-in-chief has been elevated in recent years — under Deaton, the “For All We Call Mizzou” donation campaign broke the $1 billion mark, helping build new facilities and establish 91 endowed faculty positions — and the new chancellor will undoubtedly have to turn to donors to make up funding gaps. He or she may also be faced with the perpetually unpopular prospect of raising tuition, if MU still does not have enough money to achieve its missions.
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In all of these looming issues and daunting challenges, though, we want the chancellor you select to see opportunities. We want him or her to approach these decisions with confidence in the students, faculty and staff of this university, and with understanding that there are few schools in America with the kind of potential and resources that MU has.
We trust you are being careful and meticulous with the selection process, and that your efforts will result in the continued success of the University of Missouri in a changing world. With the quality of leadership we have had, exemplified by the man who left the Chancellor’s Office this past Friday, we know MU is in a good place; with the right successor, this institution’s possibilities are endless.
Choose wisely.