The provost of a historically black Tennessee university has been named chancellor of the University of Minnesota, Morris.
Rodney Hanley, 47, will take over July 1 for the retiring Jacqueline Johnson.
Hanley has been provost at Fisk University in Nashville since 2014. He previously was provost at Lakehead University in Ontario, science dean at the University of Winnipeg, and a researcher and Earth science department chair at the University of North Dakota.
He’s also been an Eagle Scout and Army National Guard member and served in the Persian Gulf War.
Hanley has a wife, Sara, and two children.
University of Minnesota President Eric Kaler announced the appointment Friday.
“Dr. Hanley’s energy, passion, dedication, and proven senior executive leadership experience will undoubtedly continue to build on Morris’s momentum and upward trajectory,” he said in a news release. “Morris is and will continue to be a national leader in the liberal arts, campus diversity and sustainability, and plays a distinctive role in our University system.”
Hanley was among the final three candidates for the presidency of Bemidji State University and Northwest Technical College. University of Wisconsin-Superior Provost Faith Hensrud was named to that post on Wednesday.
He also had applied to be University of North Dakota president but did not make the top seven.
Hanley said in a news release that he’s “long admired Morris’s commitment to diversity, sustainability, and the liberal arts. My family and I are excited to return to an area for which we have deep roots and for which we have great love.”