Chancellor R. Bowen Loftin named UM System Vice President Hank Foley as the new senior vice chancellor for research and graduate studies during Faculty Council’s March 13 meeting.

Leona Rubin, who is currently interim dean of the MU graduate school, was also appointed MU associate vice chancellor for graduate studies and UM System vice president for academic affairs and graduate education.

The two appointments were effective Thursday, according to an MU news release.

Foley will continue serving in his current position with the UM System. Loftin said Foley’s role will also expand beyond the traditional role of vice chancellor of research to encompass graduate studies as well.

“The new vice chancellor, along with Leona, will be working with us as well to work together with the deans to figure out what parts of the graduate school need to be (handled) at the college level,” Loftin said.

Rubin, who previously served on the Faculty Council, said she is excited to work with Foley in uniting the two aspects.

“Graduate and professional education is an important mission and blends very well with the research mission at Mizzou,” Rubin said. “Putting these two units together again is an exciting new opportunity that can benefit Mizzou’s missions of research and education.”

Councilman Bill Wiebold said Loftin’s announcement is extremely good news.

“This is a special kind of circumstance,” he said. “And I think we’re gonna say (in the future), ‘Wow, this is even better than we thought it’d be.’”

Loftin also announced that he received Faculty Council’s faculty nominations for the provost search committee and said he has yet to make a decision concerning whom from Faculty Council and the Graduate Professional Council to select for the committee.

Loftin aims to bring two to four nominees for the provost position to campus by September.

The search for the School of Medicine dean has also presently not been successful, Loftin said, clarifying that it is not a failed search but an “ongoing search.”

Councilman Dan Hooley also said the Faculty Council, with MU librarians, had established an ad hoc committee to address issues of library mold.

Hooley said it is currently estimated that the 120,000 damaged books that can be salvaged will cost $2 per book in remediation. To save money, the committee may eliminate hard copies of journalism school materials.

More information will be available after the committee meets with MU Libraries director Jim Cogswell Friday, Hooley said.

Faculty Council also heard from the committee that assessed the Nuclear Science and Engineering Institute’s history and budget. NSEI committee member Bill Lamberson led a Q-and-A regarding the report the committee had released.

The NSEI committee had been tasked with developing a succinct history of the institute, starting from its move from the College of Engineering to the graduate school, and tracking its budget all the way from 1995, said committee member Jay Dow.

UM System President Tim Wolfe said during the meeting that he was committed to helping the university with its sexual assault task force, providing resources for the task force organizers, Student Affairs Committee chairman Tim Evans and Diversity Enhance Committee chairwoman Rebecca Johnson.

Wolfe also said the system is assessing campus strategies for each individual campus; it is assembling “functional representatives” on an enterprise resource planning team that will guide streamlined usage of applications such as PeopleSoft and university resource sharing.

“(Enterprise Resource Planning) is an example of a collaborative initiative we have,” Wolfe said. “We’ve made great progress in base center consolidation, where we’re going to stop having all these data centers. We’re going to have one shared place by resources between all four campuses. We’re making significant progress in the collaborative space.”

Academic Affairs Committee chairwoman Nicole Monnier said she and Evans will meet with Associate Chancellor of Facilities Gary Ward concerning childcare issues with the pending demolition of University Village.