President's Biography

Dean L. Hubbard, Ph.D.

For more than two decades, Dr. Dean L. Hubbard has focused on enhancing student achievement through university-wide process improvement – a management philosophy that has blossomed into Northwest Missouri State University’s award-winning Culture of Quality. Under his leadership the University has won the Missouri State Quality Award three consecutive times (1997, 2001 and 2005). He received the Missouri Governor’s Quality Leadership Award in 1998.

Recognized for his work in the field of total quality management, Dr. Hubbard served from 1992-96 as a member of the Board of Examiners for the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award. He also has served on the board of the Excellence in Missouri Foundation. He regularly lectures and conducts workshops on the topic of quality improvement.

The University was the first place winner of the National Association of College and University Business Officers Higher Education Award in 1996, and the only university selected for a site visit as part of the 1995 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award Education Pilot Study.

An educator with extensive international experience, Dr. Hubbard lived in Seoul, Korea, from 1966 to 1971 and helped develop language programs in six countries. In addition to extensive work in Asia, he has served as a consultant to educational institutions in Europe and Central America. Dr. Hubbard has evaluated 30 colleges and universities for accreditation on three continents.

Under his leadership, Northwest became in 1987 the first institution in the nation to install a comprehensive electronic campus. Northwest was designated in 1996 by the Missouri Legislature as the state's center for the application of information technology to learning, the adaptation of quality management principles to education, and as a model for developing cooperative, resource sharing initiatives with other postsecondary institutions in Missouri.

In addition to 20 published articles, six book chapters, and numerous papers, Dr. Hubbard has co-authored The Quest for Quality: The Challenge for Undergraduate Education in the 1990's (Jossey-Bass, 1990), The Electronic Campus (Prescott Publishing Co., 1992), Cost Containment and Continuous Quality Improvement in Higher Education (Prescott Publishing Co., 2000, edited Continuous Quality Improvement: Making the Transition to Education (Prescott Publishing Co., 1993), The Electronic Campus and Beyond, (Prescott Publishing Co., 2001), and wrote the introduction to Keeping the Promise: Improving the Quality of Undergraduate Education (American Association of State Colleges and Universities, 1991).

Prior to coming to Northwest in 1984, Dr. Hubbard served as president of Union College, in Lincoln, Neb. He holds a Ph.D. from Stanford University; a degree in Korean Language from Yonsei University, Seoul, Korea; and both a bachelor’s and master’s from Andrews University, Berrien Springs, Michigan. Dr. Hubbard and his wife, Aleta, have three children and five grandchildren.