Michelle Behr has been named chancellor of the University of Minnesota's Morris campus.
Behr, the provost of Birmingham-Southern College in Alabama, will succeed retiring chancellor Jacqueline Johnson. Behr is scheduled to take over in February pending approval by the Board of Regents.
"I am thrilled that we are able to attract a leader of Michelle's caliber," President Eric Kaler said in a statement released Tuesday. Kaler noted that Behr's "broad experience in the liberal arts" make her "an ideal person to lead the Morris campus."
Behr, a professor of geography and three-time Fulbright Scholar, will be the sixth chancellor at Morris, one of the smallest campuses in the university system. About 1,900 students attend the west-central Minnesota school, which has a focus on liberal arts.
Behr is the second person named to succeed Johnson, who had planned to retire earlier this year after 10 years in office.
Last April, the university named Rodney Hanley, the provost at Fisk University, as the campus' new chancellor. But Hanley abruptly withdrew a month later, and Johnson agreed to remain on the job until a new chancellor was selected.
Behr has served as senior vice president and dean at Birmingham-Southern since 2014. She has been a professor and administrator at the University of Northern Colorado, Western New Mexico University and New Mexico State University, and a visiting scholar at the University of California, Berkeley.
Maura Lerner • 612-673-7384
