University of Missouri System President Tim Wolfe and MU Chancellor Brady Deaton announced Tuesday that the UM System is shifting responsibility for the UM Press to MU.

The announcement came in a [news release from the MU News Bureau](http://munews.missouri.edu/news-releases/2012/0828-um-president-mu-chancellor-call-for-nominations-for-university-of-missouri-press-advisory-committee/).

An advisory committee will be appointed to offer advice and counsel on the undertaking, according to the release. No current UM Press staff will lose their jobs.

This announcement marks an important step in integrating the UM Press into the academic and research missions of the university, Wolfe said in the release.

“A viable, fully functioning Press is essential to a major AAU university,” Deaton said in the release.

MU spokesman Christian Basi said the university wants to keep moving in the right direction when it comes to the press.

“We are hoping to move aggressively to maintain a strong academic press,” Basi said. “It’s a little too early to give out any specific reaction, but we know we want to maintain a strong academic press.”

The next step in transitioning the UM Press to campus will be to organize an advisory committee, Basi said.

The committee will be made up of representatives from the four UM System campuses, student scholars, experts in scholarly publishing who work outside the university, a representative from the current press committee and scholarly authors.

The committee will provide advice and counsel on the press as it is transferred to MU, the release stated.

“(The advisory committee) is going to work with the press transition team, and that’s led by chancellor emeritus Richard Wallace and assistant vice president Deborah Noble-Triplett to ensure high quality service for University of Missouri Press, customers and authors,” Basi said.

Former UM Press managing editor Jane Lago, who parted in 2008, said she thinks the UM Press issue is long from solved.

“I don’t think all is well (with the UM Press),” Lago said. “Many unhappy authors are conjecturing that the sole purpose of this announcement was to undercut the grounds of their lawsuits, which said that the entity they were contracting no longer exists.”

Lago said it is suspicious that former UM Press editor-in-chief Clair Willcox was fired on the grounds that the press was disbanding, and that he has remained fired even after the announcement that it was not. She said the company is currently doing a national search for a new editor-in-chief. According to her, it doesn’t make sense to replace Willcox.

“There’s something fishy going on,” Lago said.

Lago, who worked at the UM Press for 33 years, said if they want to rectify the problems they need to hire a permanent director who can address a vision of what the press should be. She said the current plan can lead to a successful academic press, but she has her doubts.

“I believe it can happen,” Lago said. “I’m not optimistic that it will happen but I certainly hope it can happen.”

According to the news release, MU is hopeful about the future of the press.

“Going forward, we envision that the Press will publish not less–but more–scholarly work,” Deaton said in the release.