Contact: Maridith Geuder
STARKVILLE, Miss.--Melissa J. Mixon will assume the role of interim vice president of Mississippi State's Division of Agriculture, Forestry and Veterinary Medicine.
Associate division vice president since 2004, her appointment was announced Friday [April 4] by Interim President Vance H. Watson, pending formal approval by the Board of Trustees, State Institutions of Higher Learning.
Pending additional board approval, she also will serve as interim director of both the university's Division of Extension and Outreach and Mississippi Agricultural and Forestry Experiment Station, as well as interim dean of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.
"Dr. Mixon has more than 25 years of experience in this division, including four years of full partnership in division administration," Watson said. "I have total confidence in her abilities and in her impeccable integrity."
Watson said IHL Commissioner Tom Meredith has approved the recommendation and will move it for board consideration.
Mixon becomes only the second woman to hold a vice presidential position at the 130-year-old land-grant institution and the first in her division. Before being named associate vice president, she served 13 years as extension leader in the School of Human Sciences.
She joined the faculty in 1983 as an assistant food and nutrition specialist. Her degrees include a bachelor's and master's from the University of Alabama and a doctorate from MSU.
Recently, Mixon was one named one of 20 Food Systems Leadership Institute Fellows by the National Association of State Universities and Land Grant Colleges.
Over her MSU career, Mixon has been recognized by the campus President's Commission on the Status of Women with its Outstanding Executive/Administrative/Managerial Woman Award. She also has earned numerous professional honors for achievements in dietetic education.
For more information about Mississippi State University, see http://www.msstate.edu/.