Following a special-called meeting held Monday morning, multiple reports indicate that Murray State University’s Board of Regents have announced Dr. Ron K. Patterson as the college’s 15th president.
He will replace current president Dr. Bob Jackson, who retires June 30.
Currently the president of Chadron State College in Chadron, Nebraska, Patterson was one of four finalists alongside University of South Florida St. Petersburg’s Regional Chancellor Christian E. Hardigree, Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education’s Vice Chancellor Academic and Student Affairs and Chief Academic Officer Dr. Diana L. Rogers-Adkinson, and The University of Alabama and the University of Alabama System’s Chief Administrative Officer Chad Tindol.
KFVS 12 has noted the contract is a fiscal year salary that will not exceed $400,000 for a term of four years.
In 1998, while serving as a student assistant coach for the men’s basketball team, he graduated from University of Tennessee-Southern with a bachelor’s in human services, and followed that up in 2002 with his Master of Arts in education at Marietta College — where from 1999 until graduation he served the school as its head men’s golf coach and assistant basketball coach.
In 2022, he finished his Doctor of Education in higher education administration and leadership from Creighton University.
At his current post, one he accepted in 2023, Patterson serves an institution with 14 Division II athletic teams, more than 2,200 in enrollment and a 15-to-1 student-to-faculty ratio. Chadron State College has 500-plus employees, and its 31 buildings cover 1.2 million square feet inside of a 263-acre campus.
It’s also here, according to his credentials, where he helped launch new academic bachelor’s programs in sport fitness and recreation management (athletic administration), a Master of Arts in teaching, a Master of Science in athletic training, and an education specialist in mental health and addictions. He also helped establish two- and four-year partnerships with Western Nebraska Community College, Casper College, Central Wyoming, Rocky Vista University, University of Nebraska Medical Center, the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and the Idaho College of Osteopathic Medicine.
From 2016 until 2023, he filled numerous roles at the University of North Alabama in Florence, including: founding vice president of diversity, equity and inclusion, director of its presidential mentors academy, chief enrollment officer, assistant to the president for diversity, and associate vice president for enrollment management.
Other prior stops: Marietta College from 2014-16, the University of Central Arkansas from 2012-14,
the University of Tennessee Health Science Center in Memphis from 2004-12, and Christian Brothers University from 2002-04.
