Meet UWM Chancellor Finalist Gail Hackett

If Dr. Gail Hackett becomes the chancellor at UW-Milwaukee, she says some of her top priorities will be the enrollment rate, helping with the financial issues while keeping tuition affordable, and research projects done at UWM.

According to Hackett, you won’t have to worry about her leaving anytime soon.

“When I go somewhere, I stay for a while,” she said in an interview with Media Milwaukee.

Hackett says that she’s very excited and honored to be considered and that she can’t wait to visit next week.

Hackett will be at UWM on Dec. 1 for an open forum.

Hackett was named as one of three finalists for the new UWM chancellor on Nov. 19. The other finalists are Interim Chancellor Mark Mone and William Sherman, current provost at the University of Akron in Ohio.

Hackett is currently the provost and executive vice chancellor for academic affairs at the University of Missouri-Kansas City and has been there since 2008.

Hackett believes that she is qualified for the position because she has a breadth of in-depth experience with having 15 years of senior leadership.

Her career started after she graduated from Pennsylvania State University with a Ph.D. in counseling psychology.

Immediately after obtaining her Ph.D., Hackett served as the assistant professor of counselor education at the Ohio State University. She stayed at Ohio State for five years.

After Ohio State, Hackett continued to teach at the University of California-Santa Barbara for another five years. Her administrative experience started at Arizona State University.

From 1988-1989, she was the associate professor for the counseling psychology program and the division of psychology in education. In 1993, she was the director of the division of psychology in education up until 1997.

From 1997-2000, she was the associate dean for academic progress and personnel. She became the vice provost for academic personnel in 2000 and in 2004 she became the university vice provost and funding dean of the university college and executive vice president and provost of the university until she left in 2008.

Hackett says that she created the College of Letters and Science at ASU, created their online school, and transformed downtown Phoenix by adding a University college. The university college started with 3,000 students and as of today, they have about 12,000 students.

Immediately after leaving ASU, Hackett started another journey at the University of Missouri-Kansas City.

She served as a professor in counseling and educational psychology for about four years and has been the provost and executive vice chancellor since she started in 2008

Hackett says that some of the highlights of her career at UMKC were enhancing student success and decreasing retention rates. She says that she doesn’t want students to just come to college, she wants to make sure they stay.

Hackett also created an honors college, increased funded research by 10 percent, helped UMKC raise $65 million, and helped with their student success center.

Aside from her leadership roles, Hackett also has over 70 professional publications which includes topics such as the social cognitive theory and self-efficacy.

According to UMKC.edu, Hackett was recognized as the leading scholar in counseling psychology. A Web of Science analysis of the leading research journal in the field, the “Journal of Counseling Psychology,” revealed that two of Dr. Hackett’s articles are among the top 25 most cited articles in the Journal since its beginning in the 1950s.

Hackett has also contributed to numerous funded research projects that were awarded around $615,000.