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Middleton named interim president of UM System

COLUMBIA, Mo. – With the departure of former University of Missouri System president Tim Wolfe after a week of buzz around Columbia, the university will name deputy chancellor emeritus Mike Middleton as its interim president.

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Middleton

Middleton, an African-American, has experiences with civil rights and minority issues in his extensive law career, something which could be seen as a positive by the student groups who have protested what they see as an unsafe and unwelcoming environment for black students on the Columbia campus.

Middleton currently serves as a professor emeritus at the university’s School of Law, and he served as a trial attorney in the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice. Middleton was also the Interim Vice Provost for Minority Affairs and Faculty Development at the university in 1997.

The move signals a transition by the Board of Curators to become more inclusive after Wolfe was ousted largely by calls for increased diversity and less marginalization on campus.

The board will officially announce Middleton as the system’s next president at a press conference at University Hall Thursday afternoon.