Ball State University in Indiana has announced that Geoffrey Mearns will become its new president.
Former Ball State University President Paul Ferguson resigned in January 2016 after 17 months leading the 21,000-student school. The trustees faced criticism for a lack of transparency following his departure.
Mearns has been president of Northern Kentucky University for four years.
“Geoff Mearns is exactly the leader Ball State needs to move us boldly into the next 100 years,” said Board Chair Rick Hall in a press release. “His prior experience and knowledge of higher education will enable him to partner with our faculty, staff, and administration to provide Ball State students with a life-changing education.”
“At the same time, he will be a champion of the university, building with our alumni and friends, and the greater community, the relationships that are so critical to Ball State’s continued success,” Hall said.
Mearns goes to Ball State after spending more than four years as the president of Northern Kentucky University. He led an advocacy campaign to garner additional state support for the university, in an effort to address a historic funding disparity. The multiyear educational efforts resulted in an additional $5.1 million in funding for the university.
Additionally, Mearns secured the largest single capital investment in Northern Kentucky’s history, via a $97 million appropriation from the state for the institution’s health innovation center.
Mearns championed for student success and campus inclusivity, personally visiting 75 high schools across the commonwealth to meet prospective students and to talk with teachers and guidance counselors about the university. The collective efforts of the university community resulted in enrollment classes that showed a boost in students’ median ACT scores for incoming freshman classes, from 21.7 to 24, and substantially increased the number of underrepresented minority student enrollment.
Prior to his role at NKU, Mearns served as provost at Cleveland State University, leading CSU’s successful reaccreditation efforts and spearheading a concerted and comprehensive campus-wide initiative to improve undergraduate retention and graduation rates.
“For nearly five years, it has been my privilege and honor to serve as the president of Northern Kentucky University. Together, we have achieved real and lasting change on behalf of our 14,000 students, and we have also built a strong foundation for generations of future Norse,” Mearns said in an NKU press release. “Jennifer and I are grateful to have worked alongside you and made a difference at NKU and in the community. Now, with all of our children out of the home, we have decided it is time to embark upon a new chapter in our own lives.”
His contract at NKU expires on July 31. He has notified university trustees he will not seek a renewal of the contract.
“On behalf of the Board of Regents, I would like to thank Geoff for his tireless work to move our university forward over the past five years,” said NKU Board Chairman Rich Boehne (’81). “Under his strong and steady leadership, we have achieved new heights in academic success, advocacy, and athletics. We are truly on the rise as we prepare to celebrate our 50th anniversary in 2018, and his impact on NKU will be felt for generations to come.”
“From our perspective, Geoff is the total package,” said Matt Momper, Ball State trustee and head of the presidential search committee. “He eloquently articulates a strong vision that ensures all members of the Ball State community — students, faculty, staff, alumni, donors and friends, our legislators, local community members, all of our partners and stakeholders — will have meaningful roles in the shaping of Ball State’s future through our long-range strategic planning process and will also have every opportunity to enjoy the success that comes when we all work toward one goal.”
Mearns earned his JD from the University of Virginia and was named to the law school’s Order of Coif, reserved for those students of exemplary academic achievement. He earned his undergraduate degree in English from Yale University.
Mearns spent 17 years as an attorney, including serving as special attorney to the U.S. attorney general in the prosecution of Oklahoma City bombing accomplice Terry Nichols. He joined the Cleveland-Marshall College of Law at Cleveland State University in 2005 as dean of the college and professor of law.
“It’s an honor to be transitioning from one exceptional university to another,” Mearns said. “Ball State, like Northern Kentucky University, has a well-deserved reputation for its commitment to academic excellence and student success.
“I cherish the opportunity to serve others, I’ll work hard to support and challenge my colleagues, and I look forward to them doing the same for me. I’m passionate about working with students, having a chance to mentor them, and learn from them, and to enjoy shared successes as a Ball State community. It’s clear that when students graduate from Ball State, they are prepared to go out and take on leadership roles in their professions, and just as importantly, in their communities.”
The economic impact Ball State has on Indiana cannot be overstated, he continued, because the university plays a vital role in producing the state’s most-needed resource — smart, resourceful, innovative graduates.
“Ball State graduates leave with the entrepreneurial skills and spirit needed to solve challenges employers are facing today,” Mearns said. “Those alumni create opportunities for their own futures and for Indiana as a whole.”
Mearns added that one of his first tasks will be to meet with deans and faculty members, students and staff, and to branch out to the greater Ball State community to connect with alumni, donors and friends in an effort to hear firsthand about the many new initiatives currently underway and to learn more about what he can do to strengthen those efforts and further grow the support for, and engagement with, the university.
“There’s a proud history of excellence here,” Mearns said. “For nearly 100 years, Ball State, through its students and alumni, its faculty, staff and leadership, its donors and friends, has provided continued evidence of the great works that come when a community stays committed to cutting-edge, principled evolutions, across the campus and throughout our greater global neighborhood. It’s long been true that Ball State students become proud, loyal alumni who are leaders in their fields and pillars of their communities. It’s a privilege and an honor to have the opportunity to partner with everyone here to find and foster additional ways to grow this world-class university.
“I look forward to serving as the 17th president of Ball State University.”
More information surrounding the presidential transition at NKU will be announced over the coming weeks, including the timing of Mearns’ departure, the naming of an interim president, and the creation of a search committee. Updates will be provided at presidentialsearch.nku.edu.
Staff and other reports
What a fraud and phony Geoff Mearns is and has been as NKU’s president. I guess Ball State does not know how to use Google to do a vetting of a candidate to see all the incidents that have occurred under Mearns the past two years. He is simply on the run from NKU, trying to get away. He has destroyed a great university and will likely do the same at Ball State. Hopefully he will take Sue Ott Rowlands, Ken Bothof, and Eric Gentry with him. Bothof and his best buddy Dan McIver have to be sweating right now with Mearns leaving as the new president will get the “real” story about Bothof and all the basketball incidents that have taken place with him at NKU and Green Bay. Good riddance for NKU!
I’m with Sharon Laumann on this one. Mearns tore apart NKU and its reputation is going to take years to repair because of his inability to lead. I’m glad Ball State was willing to take him. The incoming president can now rid NKU of the most incompetent executive team in the history of higher education, beginning with Ott Rowlands and Bothof. Those two are stealing money from Kentucky taxpayers and Mearns departing should mean the end of them.
President Mearns did a decent job at NKU. There is no denying the campus has many deep issues at the moment. I am an NKU grad and believe President Mearns inherited many problems, but he was probably not the right choice to lead a campus that is growing. He mishandled the Jennifer Hilvert scandal with the NKU dance team and was caught on camera lying by the I-Team, and that will follow him everywhere. Luckilly for President Mearns current NKU Board Chairman Rich Boehne works for WCPO’s parent company and has since deleted that footage from the station’s website. But I think he did a good job of diffusing the sexual assault allegations that have cropped up the past two years. The mattress girl lawsuit has disappeared. The multiple assaults by basketball players against females has been resolved quietly for the most part. The school is in deep financial woes, but that is not President Mearns doing. Let’s all wish him well at Ball State and thank him for his years of service to NKU.
A court date has been set for the mattress girl suit.
Judy, the lawsuit is still active against NKU? I was also thinking the sexual assault suit had been settled since it did go under the radar the past few months. When is the court date?
Here’s the last thing I can find in the records, so I assume this is the date:
“A jury trial, pending the parties’ rights to file summary judgment motions, be, and is hereby SET FOR MONDAY, MAY 15, 2017 AT 10:00 A.M.”
There have been a flurry of motions, including one for a new trial date (by NKU) that was denied. We’re combing through depositions now so we can bring everyone up to date. But, yes, the Jane Doe (mattress girl) suit is still proceeding through the process. Judge Bertlesman has asked the two sides to discuss a settlement but so far they have not agreed.
Hope to have a summary of depositions and an update soon.
To Clyde, I agree with you about Boehne, he’s a no-good type NKU needs to get off the board. I know people who work at the TV station and they say in private he has made it known nothing negative will be reported about NKU, even if it’s news. I did not know he had ordered the I-Team report on the Dance Team scandal deleted, so I tried to call it up and sure enough, it no longer exists on the WCPO pages. I was told Jason Law left the station and part of the reason was guys like Boehne. The press is a complete joke in Cincinnati.