Illinois State University’s Office of the Provost welcomes Dr. Russell Morgan as its new director of Academic Labor and Employee Relations (LER), effective July 1. He will provide strategic and operational leadership in this new role and will report to Associate Vice President for Academic Administration Craig Gatto.
“I am excited to have Dr. Morgan join the Office of the Provost team at Illinois State,” said Dr. Gatto. “He brings unique perspective to this role, having been an active employee and employer representative throughout his career.”
The Academic LER will be responsible for planning, negotiating, and administering labor contracts for Illinois State’s academic bargaining units and for consulting with supervisory staff regarding tenured and tenure-track faculty, non-tenure track faculty, faculty associate, and graduate assistant employee relations matters. Morgan will work closely with Human Resources LER to transition these duties to Academic LER over the upcoming academic year.
Morgan served as senior associate provost and associate vice-president for Budget, Personnel, and Research at Western Illinois University (WIU) since July 2022. Prior to that role, he served as associate provost and associate vice president for Budget, Planning and Personnel at WIU from July 2015 through June 2022. In these roles, he had a range of responsibilities, including serving as academic contract administrator, chief academic labor negotiator, university grievance officer, chair of the University Research Council, and summer school coordinator. He also provided oversight for university retention, tenure and promotion review processes, academic affairs budget and expenditures, academic personnel processes, the Office of Sponsored Projects, new faculty orientation/mentoring program, academic facilities, and the Minority Dissertation Fellowship and visiting professor programs.
Before moving into the Provost’s Office, Morgan served as associate dean for Curriculum and Student Affairs in WIU’s College of Arts and Sciences and as interim chair of the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures. He joined WIU’s faculty in 1997 as an assistant professor of psychology, following a three-year postdoctoral appointment at Cornell University, and was appointed to full professor in 2007.
Morgan received both his doctorate and master’s degrees in experimental psychology from Kent State University and his bachelor’s degree in psychology from Miami University (Ohio). At WIU, he developed a productive behavioral neuroscience research lab focused on mentoring and training graduate and undergraduate students.
During his tenure at WIU, he chaired or served on more than 30 dissertation, master’s degree, and honors thesis committees; he has an extensive list of publications and presentations to his credit. Morgan also received WIU’s University President’s Excellence in Diversity Award. He served as chair of the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee, coordinator of the experimental psychology graduate program, vice president of the Faculty Senate and Faculty Council, and grievance officer for the University Professionals of Illinois.
