West Plains, Mo. – Missouri State University – West Plains welcomed their first of two Chancellor candidates this week: Jana W. Holwick, Ph.D.
Following Dr. Shirley Lawler’s retirement as chancellor in 2020, Dr. Dennis Lancaster has served as interim chancellor to lead the university. Dr. Jim Baker, vice president for research and economic development and international programs at the Springfield campus, is leading the search committee.
Holwick has an extensive background in education and finance. She obtained her Ph.D. in Leadership in Higher Education from Capella University in 2009 and is currently with Life University in Georgia as the Associate Vice President of Academic Affairs. Prior educational career experience includes Lake Erie College in Ohio, Crowder Community College in Nevada, Mo., and University of Missouri in Kansas City, Mo.
Holwick explained her ingenuity with finances when faced with a donation of an airport:
I was faced with a problem of showing up our balance sheet to meet our bond covenant. My president was faced with a persistent educator in the area that wanted to donate to us an airport. She had World War II planes and she wanted to donate it and he kept saying, “Absolutely not.” And I said, “What’s it worth? Tell me how much it’s worth.” And he did. And I said, “We’ll take it.” He said, “What are we going to do with that?” I said, “Here’s what you’re going to do,” I said. Because the land it comes with had lakes, ponds, trees forest, I said, “I can send my science folks out there for experiments, ecology folks, all of that can happen out there. I can have my education folks go out and archive all of the memorabilia that’s there. I can have them plan field trips for the K12.” You can make a little bit of money on that, but gives them that experience in working with the K12 and putting together that content to fit back to whatever the curriculum is within the system. I said, “We’ll take it.” -Dr. Jana Holwick
You can learn more about the MSU-WP Chancellor Search on their website, here.
The second Chancellor candidate will be visiting on November 16, 2021.
