High-ranking MU administrator Mike Middleton named interim president | The Kansas City Star

Michael Middleton was appointed Thursday as the interim president of the University of Missouri System, and he vowed to confront uncomfortable social issues that have embroiled the Columbia campus in protests in recent months.

Middleton, who has deep roots at the university as a student, faculty member and high-ranking administrator, was introduced following the board of curators’ meeting that stretched over two days. At the time of his appointment as interim president, Middleton was serving in a part-time capacity at MU, directing efforts to improve inclusion, diversity and equity within campus activities.

“I’m honored to be appointed to this role,” Middleton said. “I have seen the system grow and excel over the years and look with great optimism into the future.”

He also promised to listen to the needs and concerns of both faculty and students, including creation of a comprehensive racial awareness and inclusion curriculum, and increasing the percentage of minority faculty at Missouri.

As interim system president over all four campuses — Columbia, Kansas City, St. Louis and Rolla — Middleton replaces Tim Wolfe, who resigned Monday under pressure from students and faculty who said he had not responded to what they described as a racially intolerant and oppressive campus climate in Columbia. The campus protests also prompted the resignation of Chancellor R. Bowen Loftin, who will assume a research post at the university in January.

Middleton retired Aug. 31 after 30 years at the university, including 17 years as deputy chancellor.

Middleton, 68, of Jackson, Miss., received his bachelor’s degree from the university in 1968 and his law degree in 1971. He had a long career as a lawyer and worked with federal agencies, including for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. He joined the MU faculty in 1985.

Donald Cupps, chairman of the board of curators, cited Middleton’s skills as a manager and his past service as a civil rights attorney as reasons why he “is the best person to lead the system during this critical period of transition.”

Curators did provide any information about a presidential search process or how long Middleton would serve.

German and Russian professor Nicole Monnier, who is vice chairwoman of the MU Faculty Council, said she expects the faculty will support the curators’ choice.

“He has a track record as an administrator who more people like than not,” Monnier said of Middleton. “He has been here. He is clearly competent and understands how the campus works and how the system works.”

Since the start of the school year, the university campus had become the site of escalating protests that included rallies by graduate students seeking better benefits, black students camping out and a graduate student who went on a hunger strike until Wolfe resigned his position.

MU football players joined the protest last weekend, refusing to play until Wolfe was gone.

On Thursday after the announcement, Middleton talked about how much he understands the racial tensions and how he felt when they boiled over in the last two weeks.

“It was embarrassing, hurtful,” Middleton said. “... It crossed my mind that my 30-year career here had been a total failure. Failure to convince all to who I reported ... of the magnitude of the problem and the need to address it.”

The feelings of being marginalized that students of minority groups, including African-Americans, talked about during protests this week are feelings Middleton said he, too, has felt as a student, as a faculty member and as an administrator at MU.

“I think that folks in power who have never lived it and never experienced it have difficulty understanding it as those of us who have been marginalized do,” Middleton said.

He shared that as an undergraduate in 1969, he was a founding member of the Legion of Black Collegians — the black student government on the campus. To this day, he said, he keeps on his desk the list of demands that group made to the administration. Over the years, he’s checked demands off as they’ve been met.

“We have made remarkable gains since 1969,” Middle said. But he admitted he has yet to check off all the demands.

Governor Jay Nixon in a statement commended the curators for selecting Middleton, who Nixon called “an accomplished and widely respected leader who is deeply committed to the university and its students.”

Friends and colleagues said he is a good choice to step into the president role.

“Mike Middleton will allow for the healing process to take place,” said Kansas City Councilman Jermaine Reed, a 2007 graduate of MU.

Late Thursday in Kansas City, representatives from more than a dozen civic and faith-based groups gathered in front of St. Mark Union Church, 1101 Euclid Ave., in what they said was a call to action against racial hate.

“We believe that the University of Missouri has been woefully inactive in dealing with these very serious threats leveled against black children,” said the Rev. Vernon Howard, pastor of St. Mark and president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in Kansas City.

On campus, university police said they received a flood of calls from parents and students about race-related threats. And police were investigating a report of vandalism to the black cultural center.

“We are calling for the University of Missouri to take swift and transparent action,” Howard said. “We stand to say that love and peace will reign in the state of Missouri, and we will do all that we can to make sure that it does.”