COLUMBIA, Mo. (AP) – Healing a campus riven by student protests over race relations isn’t just the top priority for interim University of Missouri system President Mike Middleton – it’s part of his personal history.
The 68-year-old retired law professor spent 18 years as deputy chancellor on the same Columbia campus from which he graduated in 1971 and later received a law degree.
Middleton helped found the Legion of Black Collegians, a student group that participated in the protests that led to this week’s back-to-back resignations of former system President Tim Wolfe and Chancellor R. Bowen Loftin.
Middleton’s appointment was announced Thursday. He says his desk still contains a copy of the protest demands he presented to previous university leaders nearly five decades ago.