Say it ain’t so: UL Lafayette and the local arts, nonprofit and biz communities are losing one of their biggest assets.
Missouri Southern State University in Joplin confirmed March 30 that it has recruited Dr. Paula Carson to serve as its provost/vice president of Academic Affairs. The longtime UL administrator will join MSSU this summer, overseeing all academic programming and faculty as the university’s chief academic officer.
Carson has been with UL since 1991, having served as assistant VP for Institutional Planning and Effectiveness since 2007. She was chosen for the position at MSSU after a national search.
Carson graduated from Loyola University in New Orleans with a bachelor’s degree in business administration in 1987. She received her master’s degree in business administration in 1988 from Milsaps College in Jackson, Miss., and her Ph.D. in management in 1992 from LSU.
According to her CV, Carson has been responsible for UL's campus-wide strategic planning, implementation, deployment and tracking at the institutional and unit levels. She also developed and managed processes and infrastructure for assessment of outcomes and assurance of learning for more than 300 units and degree programs on campus, and worked closely with the deans, faculty and staff of all nine colleges on academic, budgetary and structural issues.
A former longtime member of the Lafayette Economic Development Authority’s board of directors (she chaired the board in 2011) and current interim CEO of the Louisiana Immersive Technologies Enterprise, Carson previously served as UL’s special assistant to the provost/VP for Academic Affairs (2007-2009) and dean of the B.I. Moody III College of Business Administration (2005-2007).
Carson, one of ABiz’s women in business honorees in 2007, is leaving UL for a much smaller university. MSSU had approximately 5,600 students in the fall of 2014, compared with UL’s record 18,800.
But it's certainly a significant step up in the administrative hierarchy at the university level. She replaces Dr. Pat Lipira, who is retiring after having served as MSSU's VP for Academic Affairs since 2012.
"I am very happy for Paula and this great advancement in her career. But as I expressed to her I am saddened by her loss to our community and as a close confidante. She was a great ambassador for UL and the arts community," LEDA President and CEO Gregg Gothreaux tells ABiz, expressing a sentiment shared by many who have worked with Carson over the past 25 years. "She was a champion for nonprofits, the arts, and was instrumental in landing the 200,000-square-foot Halliburton project during her term as chair of LEDA and [also instrumental] later in our digital media success."
Here's what Carson had to say on her Facebook page Monday:
To have lived, learned, laughed and served with each of you has been a true privilege and honor. Being part of this amazing community of scholars, leaders, artists, dreamers, thinkers and doers for 25 years has been a gift of infinite proportions. My family and I will miss you all in our minds and heart and spirits. But we are thrilled to call Joplin our new home, and proud to become part of Missouri Southern State University. We love you all. It has been an amazing, fulfilling journey. And we thank you so profoundly for being who you are, and for being forever a part of us.
"Her energy is boundless and her leadership is on point," Gothreaux continues. "I will miss her. The community will miss her."