Dr. Kathryn Northcut, professor of English and technical communication, has been named vice provost of academic support at Missouri S&T, effective Thursday, Sept. 1. She has served as interim vice provost since February 2020.

As vice provost of academic support, Northcut oversees the programs and services designed to support learning and improve retention and graduation rates. The Division of Academic Support includes S&T’s Honors Academy, experiential learning, Hit the Ground Running, S&T Advising, Learning Enhancement Across Disciplines (LEAD), the Writing Center, the Student Success Center, the Student Veteran’s Resource Center, the Student Design and Experiential Learning Center, and the South Central Regional Professional Development Center.

“I’m delighted to welcome Kathy as a permanent member of the academic affairs team,” says Dr. Colin Potts, provost and executive vice chancellor for academic affairs. “During the last year she had to make some difficult choices about our academic support priorities, and she did so with decisiveness and professionalism. As our new representative at the national Association for Undergraduate Education at Research Universities (formerly the ReInvention Collaborative), Kathy has already built the respect of her peers at over 80 highly ranked research universities and is bringing the best practices from many of those campuses to Rolla.”

Northcut joined the S&T faculty in 2004 and was instrumental in building the bachelor’s and master’s degree programs in technical communication. Before coming to S&T, Northcut earned her doctorate in technical communication and rhetoric from Texas Tech University, where she also taught for a year prior to her doctoral studies. Before that, Northcut was a technical writer in Fort Collins, and earned a master’s degree in teaching English as a second language from Colorado State University. At Western State College in Colorado (now Western Colorado University), she earned a bachelor’s degree in English with a minor in geology.

Northcut is the co-editor of two books, the most recent of which was edited with Han Yu and is titled Scientific Communication: Practices, Theories and Pedagogies, published in 2019. Her co-edited book with Eva Brumberger, Designing Texts: Teaching Visual Communication, won the 2015 Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC) award for the best original collection of essays in technical or scientific communication. She received a 2017 Faculty Excellence Award for sustained excellence in research, service and teaching, and has received several other campus and departmental awards. In 2018, Northcut was named Missouri S&T’s Woman of the Year.

“I’m honored to continue working with the talented people in the Division of Academic Support,” Northcut says. “Despite the challenges of the pandemic, it’s been exhilarating to interface with various constituencies, especially our Board of Trustees and colleagues across all four University of Missouri system campuses. Missouri S&T has never been a more exciting place to work than it is now, with a campus child development center opening soon, and the gift from Fred and June Kummer that is creating new opportunities for students and educators. I look forward to working on teams that enhance student experience, identify and remove barriers to student success, and help Missouri S&T become an even more diverse and well-respected institution.”

About Missouri University of Science and Technology

Missouri University of Science and Technology (Missouri S&T) is a STEM-focused research university of over 7,600 students and part of the four-campus University of Missouri System. Located in Rolla, Missouri, Missouri S&T offers 101 different degree programs in 40 areas of study and is ranked by CollegeFactual as the best public university to study engineering. For more information about Missouri S&T, visit www.mst.edu.