Mun Choi, MU chancellor and UM System president 

Mun Choi is the president of the UM System, which means he is the chief executive and academic officer of the UM System campuses in Columbia, St. Louis and Kansas City, as well as Missouri University of Science and Technology in Rolla. He has served in this position since 2017. He also serves as chancellor of MU, the UM System’s flagship campus in Columbia. These positions were merged in 2020, making Choi the first administrator to serve as both UM System president and MU chancellor at the same time.

Choi is responsible for the academic, public, business and financial affairs of the university system. The UM System website attributes Choi for reversing a decline in enrollment, drafting a more efficient budget and strengthening the bond between the UM System’s four campuses and the state legislature. 

Choi has defended the Thomas Jefferson statue that sits on the Quad, which many students want removed from campus since Jefferson owned slaves. Choi has also criticized MU faculty who publicly disagreed with his decision to keep the statue on the Quad. He and Provost Latha Ramchand also fired former College of Education dean Kathryn Chval in 2020 — Choi said doing so was in the “best interest” of the university, and Ramchand asserted that it was a decision she and Choi had the authority to make. He also blocked students on Twitter who criticized MU’s COVID-19 measures last school year.

Board of Curators

The Board of Curators is the governing body that the UM System president and the chancellors of all four campuses report to. The Board of Curators was responsible for merging the positions of UM System President and MU Chancellor in 2020. 

The board is composed of nine members, who represent the eight congressional districts across the state (District 3, which includes Washington and O’Fallon, has two representatives). The governor appoints members to the board, and the state Senate confirms them. Board members serve six-year terms, and no more than five of them can be members of the same political party. 

Robin R. Wenneker represents District 4, which includes Columbia. Remington Williams, a law student at UMKC, serves as the non-voting student representative.

Latha Ramchand, provost and executive vice chancellor for Academic Affairs

Latha Ramchand has served as provost since 2018. As provost, she is MU’s chief academic officer and oversees the curriculum and academic policies. Her office also manages the 14 colleges and schools on MU’s campus, as well as a variety of other academic departments, such as Undergraduate Studies, International Programs and the Office of Academic Integrity.

Along with Choi, Ramchand was responsible for firing Chval. She said at the time that it was in the “best interest” of the university. Some faculty accused Ramchand and Choi of making the decision arbitrarily and without input from faculty. They also said it went against the wishes of faculty and students of color, who said they favored Chval as dean.

Bill Stackman, vice chancellor for Student Affairs

Bill Stackman has served as the vice chancellor for the Division of Student Affairs since 2019. Student Affairs is responsible for meeting students’ non-academic needs, and its departments include the Dean of Students, Residential Life, MizzouRec, the Disability Center and Student Health and Well-Being. Stackman maintains a blog on the Student Affairs website called “The Stack” that shares news and promotional content from within the department. 

The Maneater reported last year that during a presentation, Stackman told Student Affairs staff to publicly support all university decisions and work to prevent protests happening on campus. Stackman said Choi had written the text of the presentation and guided his messaging to Student Affairs staff.

Maurice Gipson, vice chancellor for Inclusion, Diversity and Equity and chief diversity officer and B. Sherrance Russell, assistant vice chancellor for Student Diversity Initiatives

Maurice Gipson has served as vice chancellor of Inclusion, Diversity and Equity since 2020. The division oversees the five Department of Social Justice centers on campus (Gaines/Oldham Black Cultural Center, Relationship and Sexual Violence Prevention Center, Multicultural Center, Women’s Center and LGBTQ Resource Center), as well as the Civil Rights and Title IX and Accessibility and ADA offices. B. Sherrance Russell heads Student Diversity Initiatives within the division. 

Russell informed division staff last semester that the coordinators of the social justice centers would lose their jobs on July 1, 2021, in order to restructure the Department of Social Justice. Instead of a coordinator heading each center, “task-oriented” coordinators will take on specific responsibilities across the centers. There will be two assistant director positions and two student support specialist positions. The LGBTQ Resource Center and Women’s Center will share an assistant director and student support specialist, as will the Multicultural Center and Gaines/Oldham Black Cultural Center.

Staff who attended the meeting leaked this announcement on social media, sparking two student protests — first on April 19, just after the leak went public, and then on April 29. Both protests brought out more than 100 students, and several shared how the social justice centers and their coordinators positively impacted their lives at MU. The Columbia Missourian reported on May 6 that Gipson paused the plan to restructure the centers in order to “learn and get more feedback” from stakeholders.

MU News Bureau Director Christian Basi

The MU News Bureau is responsible for speaking publicly on behalf of the university. It issues news releases and gives interviews and information to reporters, including student journalists reporting for classes or student media outlets. 

Christian Basi is the director of the bureau. He oversees media relations for the UM System and MU, and he is the primary spokesperson for the UM System, the MU administration and Mizzou Athletics. Other bureau representatives are responsible for information on specific schools and departments, such as Public Information Officer Sara Diedrich, the media contact for the MU Police Department and School of Law.