CHAMPAIGN, Ill. – Robert A. Easter, the dean of the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences at the University of Illinois, has been named interim-provost designate, pending approval by the U. of I. Board of Trustees at its July 22 meeting in Chicago.
Linda Katehi, the provost and vice chancellor for academic affairs, will remain in her position through mid-August, before assuming her new duties as chancellor at the University of California at Davis.
Easter, also a professor of nutritional sciences and of animal sciences at Illinois, would then formally assume the interim-provost position. Katehi and Easter will work together in the interim to assure an orderly transition.
“Dean Easter is a strong leader, highly respected among his faculty and his peers across campus, across the nation and around the world,” said Richard Herman, chancellor of the Urbana campus. “He’s a long-serving dean whom I had the pleasure to appoint, and he has led the College of ACES with great aplomb, managing a variety of internal and external constituencies.”
A committee is being formed to conduct a national search for a new permanent provost of the campus, Herman said.
Easter, who joined the Illinois faculty as professor of swine nutrition and management in 1976, has served as dean of ACES since July 2002.
Prior to becoming dean of the college, he served from September 1996 to August 2001 as the head of the department of animal sciences.
In 2006, Easter was appointed to the Board for International Food and Agricultural Development by President George W. Bush.
Easter also has been the coordinator and a lecturer at numerous swine-nutrition short courses in China and Costa Rica. From 1993 to 1995, he served as adviser and trainer for model swine farms in Byelorussia, Russia and the Ukraine. He also has been a guest lecturer at a variety of academic and professional seminars around the world and a consultant to 16 major agricultural-related companies and associations.
Easter earned his bachelor’s degree (in agricultural education) and master’s (animal nutrition) degrees in 1970 and 1972, respectively, from Texas A&M University and a doctoral degree in animal science in 1976 from Illinois.
He was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army in 1972, and he completed 20 years of U.S. Army Reserve service in 1992, having earned the rank of major.
