UMKC Calls KC Native Home from Indiana to Fill Role of Provost

UMKC Chancellor Leo Morton announced today that Barbara Bichelmeyer had been appointed executive vice chancellor and provost, one of the top administrative functions on the campus serving more than 15,000 students.

Bichelmeyer will be making a homecoming after a career that most recently had taken her to Indiana University, where she was executive associate vice president for university academic affairs. She also served as senior director of IU’s Office of Online Education. She’ll start her new job at UMKC in mid-September.

Bichelmeyer said UMKC’s academic opportunities are what most inspired her return.

“I’m really excited about the possibilities for the future of UMKC. The university has both unique strengths and unique challenges,” she said in a release issued by the university. “This is a well-educated community that understands and appreciates higher education, which is a wonderful and vital asset as higher education undergoes a profound transformation.”

At IU, Bichelmeyer was responsible for strategic oversight of academic affairs for all seven campuses, a role that covered 8,800 faculty and academic staff and 115,000 students. She also taught 18 different courses during her tenure there and sat on more than 60 graduate research committees. She won the IU Trustees Teaching Award twice, in 2001 and 2005, and a pair of IU Teaching Excellence Recognition Awards, in 1999 and 2000. 

Bichelmeyer earned a Ph.D. in Educational Communications and Technology from the University of Kansas, and has worked for Intertec Publishing, the Johnson County Daily News and Sprint, after a stint as a teacher and girls basketball coach at St. Thomas Aquinas High School.