Dr. Dean L. Hubbard, President

Dean L. Hubbard became president of Northwest Missouri State University in 1984. Prior to arriving on the Maryville campus, he served as president of Union College, in Lincoln, Neb.

Dr. Hubbard has earned degrees from Stanford University (Ph.D.); Yonsei University in Seoul, South Korea (Korean Language); and Andrews University, Berrien Springs, Mich. (B.A. and M.A.).

Under Dr. Hubbard's leadership, Northwest has received national attention for its "Culture of Quality," an initiative designed to foster continuous improvement in all aspects of University operation, particularly undergraduate education. As a result, Northwest has won the Missouri Quality Award three times, in 1997, 2001 and 2005, and is the only educational institution in the state to achieve that distinction.

Northwest has also received site visits from Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award evaluation teams for the past three years.

Dr. Hubbard is internationally recognized for his work in the field of total quality management, particularly in the service sector. He served from 1992-1996 as a member of the Board of Examiners for the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award and currently sits on the Excellence in Missouri Foundation board and the Governor's Oversight Panel for Quality in Missouri Government. He has chaired the Judge's Panel for the Missouri Quality Award and, in 1998, received the Missouri Governor's Quality Leadership Award.

President Hubbard also chaired the AAHE Academic Quality Consortium and is a member of the TQ Leadership Steering Committee and the American Society for Quality Control. He regularly lectures and conducts workshops on the topic of quality improvement.

Other quality-related honors for Northwest include the National Association of College and University Business Officers Higher Education Award and a site visit during the 1995 Baldrige Award Education Pilot Study.

In 1987 Northwest garnered national headlines after becoming the first institution in the United States to create a comprehensive electronic campus by equipping each student room with a computer workstation and dedicated television channels. Today, every student living in a residence hall receives a laptop computer, access to high-speed Internet connections and access to hundreds of software programs, databases, instructional sites and electronic research tools.

Dr. Hubbard has worked continually to keep Northwest students atop the information curve and currently serves on advisory panels for Gateway Computers and eCollege.com. Due to the University’s leadership in this area, the Missouri Legislature in 1996 designated Northwest as Missouri’s center for the application of information technology to learning.

Lawmakers have similarly recognized the University’s adaptation of quality management principles to education along with its role in developing resource sharing initiatives with other postsecondary institutions statewide.

Under Dr. Hubbard’s guidance, Northwest has become a leader in the application of mediated learning concepts to undergraduate education and the development of accelerated learning modules and Internet-based academic programs.

Appointed in 1997 to the U.S. Department of Education's Advisory Council on Education Statistics, Dr. Hubbard also served as a member of the American Council on Education's Commission on Leadership Development. Other memberships and associations have included the Sloan Foundation Computer Simulation Advisory Panel and the K-16 Coalition for Missouri. As a commissioner and member of the Appeals Board of the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools, he has helped evaluate colleges and universities on three continents.

Over the past two decades Dr. Hubbard has served on the Missouri Governor's Advisory Council on Education (1994), the ACE Advisory Committee on Campus Trends (1989-95), the Committee on Literacy Skills for At-Risk Adults (chair 1988-89), the Council on Public Higher Education (president 1988-89), the National Summit on Mathematics Assessment (1991), the Missouri Governor's Advisory Council on Literacy (1987-89) and the American Association of State Colleges and Universities’ Committee on Excellence in Teaching and Learning. He has also been a mentor with the American Council on Education’s Fellow’s Program.

President Hubbard’s international experience includes residency in South Korea from 1966-1971 and development and consulting work in Asia, Europe and Central America. He also serves on the board of the Alliance of Universities for Democracy.

The author of 20 published articles, six book chapters and numerous papers, Dr. Hubbard co-wrote “The Quest for Quality: The Challenge for Undergraduate Education in the 1990s” (Jossey-Bass, 1990), “The Electronic Campus” (Prescott Publishing Co., 1992) and “Cost Containment and Continuous Quality Improvement in Higher Education” (Prescott Publishing Co., 2000).

He served as editor for “Continuous Quality Improvement: Making the Transition to Education” (Prescott Publishing Co., 1993) and “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).

Dr. Hubbard and his wife, Aleta, have three grown children.