Senior Consultant

Michelle Behr, Ph.D.

Specialties

Leadership team building, coaching, mentoring, and development; reading institutional culture and facilitating transformation and organizational change, especially with small institutions; shared governance; institutional accreditation

OVERVIEW

Dr. Michelle Behr served as the sixth chancellor of the University of Minnesota Morris, a federally recognized Native American-Serving Nontribal Institution, founding member of the Council of Public Liberal Arts Colleges (COPLAC), and part of the University of Minnesota System.

As chancellor, Dr. Behr initiated and brought to fruition a comprehensive institutional strategic vision and plan; set new institutional records for private philanthropic giving; reorganized and strengthened campus assessment of student learning efforts and strengthened the institution’s accreditation profile; facilitated the creation of Native American Student Educational Equity and Post-Secondary Attainment Assessment and Planning, 2020-2030 and established an Annual Healing Ceremony to support Native students and communities; and completed unit and financial realignments to balance the budget.

Dr. Behr earned her baccalaureate degree in anthropology with honors from the University of California, Santa Cruz, and her master’s and doctoral degrees from Arizona State University in anthropology and geography, respectively.

Before her service as chancellor, Michelle was provost, senior vice president of academic affairs, and dean of the college at Birmingham-Southern College in Birmingham, AL. Prior to her role as provost she served as a faculty member, department chair, university assessment coordinator, and college dean at public institutions of higher education in Illinois, New Mexico, and Colorado. Dr. Behr was also assistant director at the Western Association of Schools and Colleges (now WSCUC), a regional accreditor of institutions of higher education in the United States, where she served as liaison to over thirty colleges and universities.

 

SERVICE HIGHLIGHTS

  • Chair, Membership Committee and Member, Board of Directors, Council of Public Liberal Arts Colleges (COPLAC)
  • Chair, American Council on Education Council of Fellows
  • Member, Peer Review Corps, Higher Learning Commission of the North Central Association
  • Vice Chair, Minnesota Campus Compact Board of Directors
  • Chair, Associated Colleges of the South Council of Deans
  • Member, Association of Chief Academic Officers Board of Directors
  • Institutional Representative, Alabama ACE Women’s Network
  • Co-Chair, American Council on Education Council of Fellows 50th Anniversary Celebration
  • Member, Council of Colleges of Arts & Sciences Standing Committee on Associate/Assistant Deans
  • Founding Member, Board of Directors, Fulbright Academy of Sciences and Technology
  • Team Leader, AASCU Hispanic Student Success Study

HONORS

  • Minnesota Governor-elect Walz and Lieutenant Governor-elect Flanagan’s One Minnesota Transition Advisory Board
  • American Council on Education, Council of Fellows Service Award
  • American Council on Education Fellows Program
  • Three-time Fulbright Scholar (Hungary, Poland, and Germany
  • American Association for the Advancement of Science, Mass Media Fellow

Education

Ph.D., M.A., Arizona State University

A.B. with Honors, University of California Santa Cruz