Michigan State University Provost June Pierce Youatt appointed Laurie A. Van Egeren to interim associate provost for University Outreach and Engagement, or UOE, effective July 1.
Van Egeren currently serves as assistant provost for university-community partnerships, as well as adjunct professor in the Department of Human Development and Family Studies. She previously served as acting director of the MSU Museum, director of the MSU Community Evaluation and Research Collaborative, co-director of the National Collaborative for the Study of University Engagement, and acting director of the Michigan Institute for Safe Schools and Communities.
“Dr. Van Egeren has demonstrated strong leadership capabilities in the many roles she has taken on during her years at MSU,” Youatt said. “I am grateful she has accepted this interim role and confident she will provide both leadership and continuity during this time of transition.”
Van Egeren’s academic expertise includes prevention and intervention research and evaluation, early childhood science education, out-of-school-time programming and institutional engagement. She has served as lead principal investigator for over $10 million in grants and contracts, including a $2.5 million grant from the National Science Foundation for “Cluster Randomized Trial of Early Childhood Science Education with Low-income Children.”
“MSU embraces a vision where engaged scholarship and university-community partnerships are fundamental to the academic mission – and UOE is an international leader in how to facilitate that vision. I’m honored that the Provost has asked me to serve in this role and with these university and community colleagues,” Van Egeren said.
Van Egeren is a proven leader in the community through her work on the steering committee of the National Alliance for Broader Impacts, serving as the MSU representative to the Engagement Scholarship Consortium, and through her membership on the Council on Engagement and Outreach of the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities. In 2016, she received the Michigan Association for Evaluation Service Award.
Van Egeren will succeed Hiram E. Fitzgerald, who will return to faculty on July 1 after leading UOE for 16 years. She earned a bachelor of arts in English literature from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and a master’s degree in child and family clinical psychology and Ph.D. in developmental psychology from MSU. She began her career at MSU in 1999 as a research associate for the Institute for Children, Youth, and Families and has been with UOE since 2003.
The search for the next associate provost for University Outreach and Engagement will follow a campus-wide conversation on the future directions of outreach and engagement at MSU.
