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After a national search started in June, Maricopa County Community College District (MCCCD) announces that Dr. Karla Fisher has been selected as MCCCD’s new Vice Chancellor of Academic and Student Affairs/Provost beginning December 4, 2017.
“Dr. Fisher brings to Maricopa an impressive background of leadership and management experience in both higher education and the corporate world,” said Chancellor Maria Harper-Marinick. “She will be an asset to the District and our leadership team.”
As MCCCD’s Chief Academic and Student Affairs Officer, Dr. Fisher will be responsible for the overall planning, development, and coordination of educational and student programs and services. In this role, she will lead systemic initiatives on behalf of the Chancellor by providing District-wide leadership for educational and student support programs/services. The Vice Chancellor will work with faculty, staff, administrators, students, public representatives, and state and national organizations in support of educational excellence.
“I am delighted to join a community of teachers and learners so committed to innovation, diversity, and accountability,” said Fisher. “This is an especially exciting time with the entire district engaged in a process of a dynamic Transformation focused on what community colleges do best: improving the lives of students and driving economic and workforce development in the communities we serve.”
After more than a decade in the corporate world, Dr. Fisher began her higher education career in 2001 as an administrator at Salt Lake Community College. From there, she worked at the Center for Community College Student Engagement while completing her Ph.D. at The University of Texas, then went on to serve as Vice President of Academics at Butler Community College (KS) from 2010 to 2016, serving as Interim President in 2013. Her tenure at Butler included: the launch of four award-winning Early College Academies; introduction and development of faculty-led faculty development; establishment of scholarship-based peer tutoring; a successful ten-year Higher Learning Commission (HLC) accreditation site visit, transitioning from AQIP to the Open Pathway; and several significant donations and grants.
In January 2016, Dr. Fisher was appointed Chancellor of Arkansas State University-Beebe, an independently-accredited and operationally-separate multi-campus two-year institution in the ASU System. Under her leadership, the institution engaged in an inclusive college-wide strategic planning process, centralized administration, and combined Student Services and Academics silos under a Provost model, significantly reducing administrative overhead, while increasing efficiency and effectiveness.
Dr. Fisher has taught in campus, online, and blended learning environments since 1996. In addition to volunteer service at the local level, she has been actively involved in the community college quality movement at the state and national levels through active roles with: the Arkansas Community Colleges organization; Kansas Council of Instructional Administrators; Kansas Board of Regents Councils; American Association of Community Colleges Commissions and their 21st-Century Initiative; the National Community College Benchmark Project; and as an HLC peer reviewer. In 2015, she was named the National Council of Instructional Administrators Chief Academic Officer of the Year. This year, she was selected as a 2017-2018 Aspen Presidential Fellow.