By Joshua Benton
Blade Staff Writer
Page 14
BOWLING GREEN — An administrator at the University of Iowa has been named the new provost and vice president for academic affairs of Bowling Green State University.
Dr. John Folkins was named to the university’s top academic position Monday by BGSU President Sidney Ribeau.
“I am pleased that we have attracted an academic leader and scholar of Dr. Folkins’s caliber,” Dr. Ribeau said.
As provost, Dr. Folkins will be the university’s chief academic officer, overseeing the faculty and the education of students.
“I was very impressed in all of my interactions with the people at Bowling Green,” he said from his Iowa office. “There’s a huge amount of momentum there, and I am thrilled to be part of it.”
Dr. Folkins received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Redlands, and his doctorate from the University of Washington.
He has been at the University of Iowa since 1977, when he joined the faculty of the department of speech pathology and audiology. Dr. Folkins became the department’s acting chairman in 1985, taking the job permanently the next year.
In 1993, he was named associate provost for academic review and academic support services. Four years later, he became associate provost for undergraduate education.
Dr. Folkins’s major area of academic research is the neuromotor control of speech movements. He is a past president of the American Association of Phonetic Sciences and former editor of the Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research.
The university’s last permanent provost, Dr. Charles Middleton, left in May to become vice chancellor for academic affairs for the University System of Maryland. Dr. Linda Dobb, who had been the university’s dean of libraries and learning service, has been interim provost since then.
Dr. Dobb had been one of five finalists for the permanent post; Teri Sharp, the university’s director of news services, said Dr. Dobb’s new status with the university has not been determined.
Dr. Folkins will start May 1. He will be paid $170,000. Dr. Middleton’s salary was $140,719.