While in college, Brady Deaton served in the Peace Corps in Thailand, teaching vocational agriculture in the Thai language
Top Tiger is on the job, ready to listen
By LYNN FRANEY The Kansas City Star
Brady J. Deaton has come a long way from his two years living in the dairy barn at the University of Kentucky.
In the 1960s, the eastern Kentuckian from a family of nine children took care of the cows 20 to 30 hours a week in exchange for a roof over his head and wages he used to pay most of his tuition. He became the first in his family to earn a college degree.
Now Deaton is running Missouri's top public university, wrapping up his second week as chancellor at the University of Missouri-Columbia.
What began with responsibility for a few cows has morphed into a job that keeps him on call practically 24 hours a day, seven days a week handling a yearly budget of roughly $1.2 billion.
He is in charge of keeping everybody satisfied: thousands of alumni, more than 1,500 professors and the state legislators who send millions of dollars to the school.
And, of course, he can't forget the students.
This quiet, unassuming man now must ensure that 27,000 students get what they need inside their classrooms, their residence halls and their student clubs, while trying to keep tuition in check.
He's going to have to lead MU's $600 million fund-raising campaign and oversee the athletic department so MU has sports teams that bring glory to the Tiger name.
He's been so busy with out-of-town trips in his first days as chancellor that he's asked reporters to wait to interview him about his new post until next week.
But discussions with people who know Deaton reveal him to be a trustworthy, hard-working administrator who listens well, takes his time making decisions, and brings an interest in global diversity to the job.
Like University of Missouri system President Elson Floyd, who tapped him to lead the system's flagship campus, Deaton used education as a way out of modest family circumstances.
“He's very grounded in a sense of values, family, honesty, and hard work,” said Deaton's wife, Anne, a director at the Missouri Department of Mental Health. She is retiring her post to devote time to being the university's “first lady” and take care of her elderly parents, who just moved in with the Deatons in Columbia.
“He came from humble beginnings — a family that had challenges around income, but a family rich in love. He really valued and gained from teachers who were dedicated to helping students who were capable and interested in advancing themselves.”
While in college, Deaton served in the Peace Corps in Thailand, teaching vocational agriculture in the Thai language.
After graduating from the University of Kentucky, Deaton earned a doctorate in agricultural economics from the University of Wisconsin. He went straight into teaching, spending time at several colleges before arriving at MU in 1989 as the leader of the agricultural economics department.
He moved into campuswide administration in 1993 as the chancellor's chief of staff; the title later changed to deputy chancellor. His next post was MU provost, the campus' chief academic officer who represented Chancellor Richard Wallace in his absence.
In those years, he's taken many trips abroad, boosting MU's visibility among European Union countries, working to develop a joint agribusiness project in Bulgaria, and training Russian university leaders.
And he hasn't forgotten his friends in Thailand; in 1999, he helped lead a strategic planning exercise with 50 administrators at a university in the southeast Asian nation.
Last year, when Floyd said he would explore combining the jobs of system president and Columbia campus chancellor, Wallace said he would retire this summer.
Deaton was to serve as interim chancellor while Floyd conducted a nationwide search for a permanent replacement for Wallace.
The search never happened.
Floyd announced Oct. 1 that Deaton would lose the word “interim” in his title Oct. 4.
He introduced Deaton as chancellor on Oct. 1, before he had the formal approval of the governor-appointed Board of Curators. The curators, who run the four-campus university system, approved Floyd's choice three days later.
“Dr. Floyd came to the conclusion that all three groups (students, faculty and staff) will be very comfortable with Dr. Deaton in the leadership position,” said Joe Moore, a university system spokesman. “He had the right person at the right time for this institution. Dr. Deaton has been an instrumental part in many different initiatives that MU has going currently. And essentially there will be no interruption of leadership.”
Richard Oliver, the dean of MU's School of Health Professions, said he appreciates the stability in leadership. He said Deaton has supported collaboration between the University of Missouri campuses, including approving a new partnership between Oliver's school and the School of Pharmacy at the University of Missouri-Kansas City.
Oliver praised Deaton for not “rubber-stamping” things that come across his desk.
When you send him a report to read, Oliver said, you know when he discusses it with you later that he's read the entire thing, not just perused the executive summary.
Although personable, Deaton tends to come across as serious and a bit intense.
Michael Roberts, director of MU's new Life Sciences Center, remembers when he was negotiating his contract with Deaton, who was provost at the time.
“When we were finishing up, I said, ‘Oh. One more thing. My wife asked me to get season tickets to basketball,'” Roberts recalled of a request the men knew was probably impossible to fulfill. “He looked terribly upset. He looked rather crestfallen. He thought I was probably going to turn the job down. I said, ‘Just a joke.'”
In a recent talk before the Faculty Council — whose members had grumbled when the national search was called off — Deaton laid out his priorities as chancellor: recruit and retain the best professors; make MU affordable; increase enrollment; expand MU's global reach; improve campus diversity and communication with alumni; and collect more outside money for research.
Students also have been presenting their needs to the new chancellor. The No. 1 priority: Stop the rapid rise in tuition. Undergraduates from Missouri now pay $6,276 a year in tuition for a full class load.
“Any of the students I know who have actually worked with Chancellor Deaton think he's excellent for the position,” said student body vice president Kara Heppermann, who is from St. Louis. “He's student-friendly and very willing to talk with students about any concerns he has. As soon as he started in his position as interim chancellor, he set up appointments with the student leaders.”
Oliver echoed those comments; even when professors disagree with Deaton's decision, they trust he's talked to the people involved and researched the topic sufficiently to decide what's in the best interest of MU as a whole, not just a particular group.
“I'm glad he's at the helm right now,” Oliver said.
To reach Lynn Franey, higher education reporter, call (816) 234-4927 or send e-mail to
lfraney@kcstar.com.
