Bill Stackman was not planning to leave the University of Missouri.
The MU dean of students and vice chancellor for Student Affairs, Stackman has worked in student affairs at nine universities across the country over the course of his career.
He said several factors motivated his moves, including career advancement and family.
Unlike his other moves, the one he is making now — which will take him to Harvard University in July to work in a role similar to his position at MU — was very much a “surprise.”
“I wasn’t looking to move. I honestly thought this would be my home for a long time. I’ve been here for four years. I’ve been working on my house, doing renovations, establishing a community, thinking I’m here for many, many years,” he said.
“And then the search firm (for Harvard) contacted me four times, and the first three times, I didn’t even pay attention to it because I wasn’t looking. And it wasn’t until the fourth time I opened the email and actually read it to learn more about it,” he added.
In an email sharing the announcement with student leaders, Stackman wrote that it “proved to be a very difficult decision.” He said later that his family was what ultimately led him to accept the position — his daughter is considering moving to Boston for work, and one of his sisters lives on the East Coast. He wanted to live closer to them.
Former Missouri Students Association Senate Speaker Lane Cargile, who has worked with Stackman in this and other roles over his four years at MU, called the news of Stackman’s move “bittersweet.”
“It’s Harvard. It’s a dean of students position. That’s an amazing thing,” Cargile said. “But it’s also hard to see Student Affairs without him.”
Cargile said Stackman brought a “big dreamer” approach to his work.
“You come up to him with a problem and he’s like, ‘OK, we’re going to solve it and solve the other world problems while we’re at it,’” he said.
‘Poster child for lifelong learning’
This passion does not end with Stackman’s work. Jim Spain, the MU vice provost for undergraduate studies, described him as an “Energizer bunny.”
“If he’s not at work — which is a 24-hour-a-day, seven-day-a-week job — he’s pursuing a master’s degree to advance his own education,” Spain said. “And if he’s not doing that, he’s on his bike, on a trail, pedaling I don’t know how many hundreds of miles every week. And if he’s not doing that, he’s with his pup, trying to get Mac some exercise. Mac is also high energy — the two of them go together.”
Spain said Stackman’s commitment to continuing his education in addition to his other responsibilities made him “a poster child for lifelong learning.”
Stackman, the son of a college professor and kindergarten teacher and the brother of two teachers, said he has been surrounded by academia his entire life. However, he did not originally plan to study or work in it.
He attended the University of Kentucky and MU to study parks and recreation management, and he worked an on-campus job at MizzouRec. When he graduated from MU, a recession had frozen hiring for parks and recreation jobs, so he found himself working in student affairs at a small college in West Virginia.
Once he stepped into the role, “I knew immediately that higher education was my calling, so I went back and got another master’s (degree) in higher education to have that background in student development theory and higher education administration. And then along the way I got my doctorate in educational leadership and policy studies at Boston University,” he said.
Even as he progressed in his professional career, Stackman felt pulled to continue his education, although he ran into obstacles trying to do so.
“Since I completed my doctorate, I was always interested in going back to the classroom. And not necessarily to earn a degree, but just to learn,” he said. “But I didn’t see that as possible with raising kids.”
When he arrived at MU, however, both his children were out of the house, so he decided to spend his newfound time pursuing a master’s degree in positive coaching and a graduate certificate in positive psychology. Once he finished those programs, he began studying for a master’s degree in social work, which he will transfer to a school in Boston.
Focus on students’ well-being
Cargile said that during his time at MU, Stackman always did what he could to promote discourse.
“He’s someone that very much leads with a listening ear,” Cargile said. “There’s been issues we’ve disagreed on, there’s been things that I’ve called him out for and he’s called me out for throughout the years. (He) taught me and other people in these positions to be comfortable with speaking up to authority and talking to them about the hard issues.”
Some of these issues have overlapped with the four areas that Stackman and his team have prioritized, including mental health and emotional well-being, diversity and inclusion, student success, and a healthy organization and work culture. Stackman said that while there’s still work to be done, he’s proud of the progress that he and the Student Affairs staff have made in these areas and the strategic plans they’ve laid out.
“We’ve shrunk the wait time (for mental health services),” he said. “When I arrived, I heard frustration from students about getting in, how hard it was, so we have used a new model — the rapid access model — to get students in quickly and to reduce the wait time drastically, which we’ve done.”
“We’re also staffed better to support our diverse needs,” he added. “There weren’t always staff, previously, that looked like all of our students, that had similar backgrounds or who were trained to deal with specific psychological issues and experiences, and we are much better situated in that regard. So we’re doing a lot of good work around IDE (inclusion, diversity, and equity).”
Cargile echoed these successes under Stackman’s leadership.
“Within specifically his mental health portfolio … he really made that a priority, and him and his team looked at the counseling center and listened to students who talked about (the need for diversity and easy access to care),” he said. “And they turned it around — that’s something that he put a lot of energy and resources and dedication towards, which I’ve been really thankful for.”
In addition to learning in the classroom, Stackman said his work at MU has taught him lessons he will carry with him to Harvard and beyond.
“I think I’ve learned how to better support students holistically, and I’m really thinking about the academic integration we’ve been able to do. The work that specifically Dr. Spain and I have done, and our teams collectively and collaboratively have done, I think that’s something I want to make sure I am able to do at Harvard — find those partners on the academic side and work with them to better support the overall student experience and student success,” he said.
From the beginning of his work at MU, Stackman and his team collaborated with Spain and his team to ensure student needs were being met both inside and outside the classroom.
Spain said Stackman’s love for people has been a key part of his success at MU.
“Higher education is a people business. It’s a business based on relationships, and that is the core of what makes Bill Stackman tick,” Spain said. “Whether it’s a staff member, whether it’s a student, whether it’s a colleague, a faculty member… Bill is really in it. He’s in it for the people that he can serve and that’s what’s made him so valuable at Mizzou.”
