MSU welcomes 12th president

There’s a new Bear in town: Richard “Biff” Williams took over the top leadership role of Missouri State University on July 1, after the retirement of former President Clif Smart.

Williams came to the role from Utah Tech University, formerly Dixie State University. It was Williams who oversaw the controversial name change, finalized in 2022, and prior to that, he piloted the university through the first years following its transition from a junior college to a polytechnical institution with a focus on applied sciences.

While some community members and alumni opposed the new moniker, Williams ushered the change through the state legislature in the belief that doing so would move the institution forward. A 33% increase in donations in the year following the name change, as reported in The Salt Lake Tribune, seemed to bear that out.

During his decade at Utah Tech, Williams oversaw massive growth, including a doubling of enrollment, the establishment of hundreds of new academic programs and a vigorous facilities program. The university recently completed a transition from Division II to Division I athletics as well.

Williams comes from an academic background, beginning as an assistant professor of kinesiology and working to gain tenure and promotion, scaling university leadership positions all the way to the presidency.

It’s not a model that is frequently seen anymore, he said.

“That’s something I’m really proud of, is being able to have gone through the tenure process and understand it,” he said. “I think there aren’t very many presidents like me anymore, but I’m fortunate in my career that I got in every step and learned a lot in each of them.”

Tough act to follow

Williams follows Smart, a prominent figure in the community, as well as one who seemed to be well liked.

“I always said as a professional, I want to go somewhere that’s totally broken – maybe they ran their president out,” he joked.

He conceded that leading a university that is on a positive trajectory is much better.

“As I was investigating Missouri State, what’s nice is to inherit something that has momentum and has had a beloved person, so you don’t have to clean everything up,” he said.

Smart set the tone for interaction, he said.

“That’s nice for me, because I like to be very involved with the students and the community, and coming in here, that’s not going to be a shock to anybody’s system,” he said. “His desire to be part of the community and the students’ lives matches mine, so I think that’ll kind of grease the skids for me. He has set the stage.”

He added, though, that he won’t be President Smart.

“That’s the biggest mistake people can make, is trying to be somebody other than who they are,” he said. “What’s nice is he set a model that works for Springfield, for Missouri State – so I can look at that and see where I plug in and how I match.”

MSU entered fall 2023 with total system enrollment just shy of 26,000, with Springfield campus students numbering 24,224 – up 3.9% from the previous year and just 166 students short of an all-time high set in 2018, according to university figures.

According to its website, the university employs 3,787. Its operating budget for fiscal 2025, approved in June, sets total annual expenditures at $321 million.

Enrollment gains
Utah Tech, a former junior college, had only been a university for a year when Williams arrived as its president in 2014. That fall, enrollment stood at 8,341 students; enrollment in the fall semester of 2024 was 12,567, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.

Part of the reason for the surge is that people wanted to be in St. George, Utah, located near Zion National Park and only 90 minutes from Las Vegas.

But location isn’t everything. Course offerings matter, too.

“The real key was our long-range plan,” he said. “We started offering the academic programs that were desired by students.”

During his decade at Utah Tech, Williams oversaw the addition of more than 200 academic programs, including the university’s first graduate degrees.

New dorms also helped with enrollment. Williams built three, the last of which is now approaching completion.

“The enrollment was such that we hit on every aspect,” he said. “If they were about academics, we had it. If they were about the living and being close to the academics, we hit it. We hit the recreation. We hit the athletics.”

Asked if he saw any low-hanging fruit to bring enrollment gains to MSU, Williams said he was only just beginning to meet with student groups and others.

“There’s always low-hanging fruit, but I haven’t had an opportunity to listen to the student services folks or the faculty and just really hear what those low-hanging fruit might be,” he said. “They will identify them – there’s no doubt.”

Athletic upgrade
With Williams as president, Utah Tech went from being a Division II to a Division I football team – a move suggested to him in a letter brought to him by students.

“Then I actually got a letter from the faculty, saying, ‘We support this’ – and wow, that was pretty spectacular, too,” he said.

Ken Beazer, executive director of intercollegiate athletics at Utah Tech, said he thinks moving from D2 to D1 is actually a steeper climb than MSU’s recent move to join the Conference USA league, which takes it from the Football Championship Subdivision to the Football Bowl Subdivision.

“It was a pretty bold and aggressive initiative that he took, but it happened – we’re done,” Beazer said. “Our transition was approved July 1.”

The move to D1 was spearheaded by Williams on behalf of the students, Beazer said.

“I think he’s in a good position to lead the transition to FBS for Missouri State,” he said. “He will inject some energy into the athletics program.”

Building boom
During his decade at Utah Tech, Williams oversaw the construction or renovation of 42 campus buildings. He said he is eager to apply his energies to MSU’s buildings.

“We have the bones – and we have a lot of bones and a lot of buildings that we’ll have to pay attention to,” he said. “We’ll undergo a long-range planning this year, and I think a lot of those needs will come out.”

Brad Last, vice president of university advancement at Utah Tech, said Williams made a huge difference on campus.

“He’s definitely a builder,” Last said. “If you saw what this campus looked like 10 years ago compared to now, you’d think it was an entirely different place.”

The Human Performance Center, a combination student recreation center and academic building that the Utah Tech website calls an active learning facility, is the most notable example of the input of Williams, whose original field of study was kinesiology.

“He noticed recreation buildings were busy in the morning and the evening and mostly empty all day – the opposite of academic buildings,” Last said. “He felt like it made sense to marry the two.”

The result is a 90,000-square-foot V-shaped building that has academic classrooms and laboratories on one side and a rec center on the other.

“It’s really beautiful, and it’s something he was very proud of,” Last said.

Planning approach
Buildings don’t pop up by chance, Williams said; instead, they’re the result of needs assessment, study and long-range planning. MSU’s current long-range plan runs through 2026, but Williams is looking to get the next one pinned down a year earlier than that.

He noted a long-range plan has to involve all campus constituent groups.

“My approach to long-range planning is that it’s our approach, and it’s not my approach,” he said. “We’re creating a chance for this to be our long-range plan –  ‘our’ being the faculty, the staff, all the employees, the community, local business leaders, legislators.”

He said the reason he was able to build or renovate buildings at a rate of more than four per year is that everyone was on board.

“It wasn’t just my plan or the president’s plan – it was everybody’s, and everybody had some buy-in to it,” he said. “You really get to know the needs when everybody’s at the table talking about them.”

Leadership style
Beazer said he believes Williams will fit in well at MSU.

He described Williams as a guy who is always thinking forward.

“He’s always looking at things,” he said. “With facilities or capital projects, you think that you have kind of an aggressive idea in mind, and you’ll present it to him and he’ll actually add to it. He’ll say, ‘Have you thought about this?’ and then he makes it happen.”

Beazer said Williams has a disarming personality and a genuine approach.

“It makes it really easy for him to connect,” he said. “There’s no facade – no ulterior motive. Whether he’s talking to a donor, coach or CEO, he will resonate with them.”

Business links
The polytechnic model involves working closely with business and industry to provide students with internships, externships, summer jobs and other dynamic learning opportunities to prepare them for the workforce, Williams said.

Asked if he would bring that mindset to MSU, he said he would like to.

“I think we have a lot of great corporate partnerships,” he said, “so I’m anxious to learn if there is room for growth there.”

He said he has talked to local businesses and learned that there probably is.

The key is finding out from students what they want to accomplish with their career and determining how they can best be career-ready upon graduation.

“I think that will be paramount,” he said. “What are we doing in that realm, and how can we enhance that?”

He added that he has found businesses to be very eager to get involved in student learning.

“Business is getting to a point where they want to have influence while students are being educated, so the students are ready to go on day one,” he said.

An important component of that is advisory boards – which Utah State had, and which Williams says MSU has excellent examples of, too. Advisers can weigh in on whether they believe students are being trained properly and on any new trends that should be brought to bear.

“You need to think about these things when you are building your curriculum or tweaking your curriculum,” he said.