On December 12, 2002, the University of Arkansas Board of Trustees named Dr. Joel E. Anderson the eighth chief executive officer of the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. Dr. Anderson brings more than thirty years of university and community service to the position of chancellor, including leadership on many of the changes which have made UALR the institution it is today.
Beginning in 1971 as an assistant professor of political science, Dr. Anderson has advanced through every academic level at UALR. He earned promotions to associate and full professor, served as president of the University Assembly, and acted as chair of the department of political science on three occasions. He became the first dean of the graduate school, where he assisted in the design and approval of the first seventeen master’s degrees offered by UALR, opened the Office of Research and Sponsored Programs, and initiated a Minority Incentive Tuition Grant Program. He was named Provost and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs in 1984.
As Provost, Dr. Anderson assisted in implementing the Donaghey College of Information Science and Systems Engineering (CyberCollege) with new majors in systems engineering and information science and a new minor in information technology for non-technology majors. He oversaw the movement of the institution to the doctoral level. He initiated the UALR Benton Center and the UALR-Hall High University School, a concurrent enrollment program that permits qualified high school juniors and seniors to enroll in university classes co-taught by UALR and Hall faculty.
Chancellor Anderson has stated that he wants “UALR” and “partnership with the community” to be synonymous terms. He has led the way in demonstrating how a metropolitan university can extend into the community to help meet today’s tough challenges. He was project director and chair of the university task force on the Little Rock School District which released the nationally recognized report Plain Talk: The Future of Little Rock’s Public Schools in 1997. Then in 2000, he was project director and chair of the university task force which issued the report Water for Our Future: Overcoming Regional Paralysis. This report led to the merger of the Little Rock and North Little Rock water utilities and won for UALR the Jack Evans Regional Leadership Award from the Metroplan Board of Directors in 2000.
As another extension of his metropolitan university and community-service based vision, Dr. Anderson serves on the board of directors of the Little Rock Regional Chamber of Commerce, the American Council on Education’s Office of Women in Higher Education, Coalition of Urban and Metropolitan Universities, Pulaski County United Way, Arkansas 4-H Foundation, and Little Rock’s Downtown Partnership. He is a consultant-evaluator for the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools. Dr. Anderson is a member of the Arkansas Department of Higher Education/Concurrent Enrollment Panel. In the past he has served on the board of directors of the Arkansas Science and Technology Authority (chair, 2001), KLRE-KUAR FM, the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra Society, the Alliance for Our Public Schools, the Rotary Club 99 of Little Rock, and the Pulaski County Board of Election Commissioners. He is a former president of the Arkansas Political Science Association and a former editor of its journal.
Dr. Anderson attended Harding College in Searcy, Arkansas, where he served as president of the student body and earned his bachelor’s degree in political science, graduating magna cum laude. He then moved to Washington, D.C., where he earned the M.A. in international relations from American University. He received the Ph.D. in political science from the University of Michigan in 1974 and completed the Institute for Educational Management at Harvard University in 1993.
Joel Anderson grew up on a farm east of Swifton in northeast Arkansas. While in school at Swifton, he was a starter on the basketball team, Arkansas State 4-H Club President, and a National 4-H Achievement winner. He is married to the former Ann Gaskill of Huntsville, Arkansas. The couple has three sons and two granddaughters.