Dr. Rod Barr joined the Northwest faculty in 2003 and led the School of Agricultural Sciences from 2013 until his appointment as dean in 2025. Prior to his work at Northwest, he was a secondary agricultural education teacher at Northwest Technical School in the Maryville R-II School District.
In addition to teaching a variety of agriculture-related coursework, he has led efforts at Northwest to restructure agriculture programming, facilitate partnerships and improve facilities, including the relocation of the School of Agricultural Sciences to the Dean L. Hubbard Center for Innovation, a renovation of the McKemy Center for Lifelong Learning and multiple construction projects at the R.T. Wright Farm.
He has an Ed.D. in educational leadership and policy analysis from the University of Missouri-Columbia. At Northwest, he earned an educational specialist degree in educational leadership with a superintendent and secondary principal emphasis, a master’s degree in secondary education teaching agriculture, and bachelor’s degrees in secondary education agriculture education and animal science.
