MTSU Board of Trustees approve merger to create Political and Global Affairs Department

Middle Tennessee State University President Sidney A. McPhee smiles while giving his report during the MTSU Board of Trustees quarterly meeting held Tuesday, Sept. 12, at the Miller Education Center on Bell Street. (MTSU photo by J. Intintoli)

Middle Tennessee State University’s Board of Trustees approved Tuesday, Sept. 12, the merger of two academic departments in the College of Liberal Arts into a single entity.

Trustees endorsed a recommendation by the Academic Affairs, Student Life, and Athletics Committee to combine the Department of Global Studies and Human Geography with the Department of Political Science and International Relations.

Dr. Mark Byrnes, university provost — Dr. Mark Byrnes

The new department, which will be known as the Department of Political and Global Affairs, will streamline the reporting structure within the college and create efficiencies, said Provost Mark Byrnes, the university’s chief academic officer.

All academic majors, minors and certificates offered by the two departments, as well as all faculty and students, will be retained in the new entity, Byrnes said.

Trustees, in other business, approved the hiring of Leah Ladley as the university’s new chief audit executive.

Ladley, chief auditor at the University of Oregon since 2020, also worked as chief audit officer for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital for more than a decade.

For more information about the MTSU Board of Trustees and access meeting archives, go to www.mtsu.edu/boardoftrustees.

— Andrew Oppmann (Andrew.Oppmann@mtsu.edu)