Fuller new deputy higher-ed director
The Arkansas Department of Higher Education has a new deputy director.
Nick Fuller, 35, moved to the state agency from the Department of Finance and Administration’s budget office, where he worked for 10 years. Most recently, the Malvern native worked as an assistant administrator at the Finance and Administration Department.
He started at the Higher Education Department on Jan. 2 and is replacing Tara Smith, who left the position to become the chief financial officer/vice chancellor for finance at the University of Arkansas-Pulaski Technical College. Smith had worked in many capacities in the Higher Education Department in her total non-consecutive 12-year tenure there.
Fuller will be paid $120,543 annually in his new role.
ASU, UA systems each get $500,000
Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson has awarded the state’s two university systems $500,000 each.
Hutchinson gave the Arkansas State University System state discretionary funds to help pay for an efficiency study that it is undertaking. The governor gave similar funding to the University of Arkansas System’s standalone online-only university, eVersity.
At the ASU System, the funds will go toward its $995,000 contract with Huron Consulting Group. The group is helping the system and its schools find ways to increase revenue, reduce costs and reallocate resources to prioritized projects, the system said. System officials expect the review — which will include a presentation of up to 50 opportunities, mostly focused on growing revenue — to be completed early this year.
The ASU System will use reserves to pay for the remainder of the Huron contract, it said.
The UA System will use its share of the discretionary funds to help market eVersity “at a level that allows [it] to reach sustainable enrollment levels” and to employ “the needed student-support staff to continue the model we have successfully built.”
Presidents Council panel gets shuffle
The Executive Council of the Presidents Council is undergoing a few changes in appointments.
The council is made up of presidents and chancellors from the state’s public colleges, universities and university systems who help shape higher-education policy. The panel typically meets the same months as the Arkansas Higher Education Coordinating Board.
John Hogan, who is the president of National Park College in Hot Springs, will replace Evelyn Jorgenson, who leads Northwest Arkansas Community College. Keith Pinchback, the chancellor of the three-campus Phillips Community College of the University of Arkansas, is replacing James Shemwell, the president of Arkansas Northeastern College in Blytheville.
The chancellor of the University of Arkansas at Monticello, Karla Hughes, will serve in lieu of University of Arkansas System President Donald Bobbitt. And Houston Davis, who leads the University of Central Arkansas in Conway, will replace Glen Jones, the president of Henderson State University in Arkadelphia.