Barbara B. Dixon

Barbara B. Dixon, D.M.A., has been an administrator and faculty member in public institutions of higher education for almost four decades. Dr. Dixon currently serves as Consultant to the Board of Governors at Truman State University in Missouri. She was President of the highly-selective public liberal arts and sciences university from 2003 to 2008. During her distinguished presidential tenure, she reversed a declining enrollment trend, developed a $30-million fundraising campaign that is now in its third year and on target, addressed needed adjustments to faculty salaries, and completed $90 million of facility improvements. Under her leadership, the university received 10-year accreditation from the Higher Learning Commission of the North Central Association of Accreditation.

Prior to her presidential service at Truman, Dr. Dixon was Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs and Professor of Music at the State University of New York at Geneseo from 1997 to 2003. Responsible for all operations within the academic division, she developed a campus-wide assessment plan that won praise from the Middle States visiting accreditation team. Other accomplishments included establishing of a Center of Excellence for Teaching and Learning, increasing sponsored research and grant money awarded by more than 100 percent over a two-year period, and refining the recruitment and hiring process to attract more women, minorities and persons whose academic career aspirations matches the mission of the college, which resulted in an increase in women by 8 percent and in minorities hired by 5 percent and in a reversal in the drain of faculty to research institutions.

Dr. Dixon began her 26-year academic career at Central Michigan University in 1971. During her tenure, she served six years as Associate Dean and two years as Interim Dean for the College of Arts and Sciences, which included 21 academic departments, 140 programs, 430 faculty, and a $14 million budget.

Dr. Dixon has provided leadership on state and national levels. She has served as President of the Council on Public Higher Education, an organization of CEOs of Missouri’s four-year public universities, and the Council on Public Liberal Arts College, a national consortium of public liberal arts colleges. A former member of the NCAA Division II President’s Council, she was an officer of the Mid-America Intercollegiate Athletic Association Conference, serving as Secretary and Vice President.

With a Bachelor of Music degree and a Master of Music degree in applied piano from Michigan State University, she earned her Doctor of Musical Arts from the University of Colorado.

Dr. Dixon will be on temporary assignment at Lock Haven University of Pennsylvania, where she will serve as interim President for the 2010-2011 academic year.