Jeremy L. Moreland
President
A dynamic academic leader in professions-based, student-centered higher education, Dr. Jeremy L. Moreland was officially appointed as the 13 th president in William Woods University (WWU) history on September 21, 2021. Stepping into the top leadership role at WWU in its 151th year of operation, Dr. Moreland’s mandate for leading William Woods into the future includes a commitment to academic opportunity, enrollment growth, and fiscal health of the University.
Having served in a variety of roles in his nearly quarter-century higher education career including provost/chief academic officer, dean, faculty member and research associate, Dr. Moreland joined WWU after serving in the top academic leadership role at St. Thomas University, a private, regionally-accredited student-focused university in Miami, Florida.
Serving as Provost and Chief Academic Officer for St. Thomas University, Dr. Moreland led the university’s academic affairs division during two and a half years of tremendous academic and enrollment growth. Responsible for oversight of academic programs, instruction, classroom and online delivery, curriculum, assessment and quality assurance among other areas, St. Thomas enjoyed remarkable enrollment growth during his tenure, including consecutive record-breaking incoming traditional age freshman classes in 2019, 2020, and 2021. He was also instrumental in helping achieve operating surpluses in the university’s budget after years of deficits, innovative new academic programs and the implementation of a multi-point, hybrid advising model. He also led successful responses to fully resolve existing accreditor concerns regarding earlier years’ financial and assessment matters, thus ending his tenure at St. Thomas with zero accreditor concerns for the institution.
Prior to joining STU, Dr. Moreland served as Provost and Chief Academic Officer at the University of the Rockies, a private, Higher Learning Commission-accredited university serving masters and doctoral students nationally from Denver, Colorado. While overseeing all academic programs, instruction, online and classroom delivery, curriculum and assessment, he was instrumental in helping achieve year-over-year improvements in areas such as student retention, student satisfaction, increased class size and improved availability, and employee engagement and satisfaction.
From 2004-2016, Dr. Moreland held a variety of increasingly responsible academic positions at the University of Phoenix (Arizona), including Academic Dean and Executive Director, Associate Dean and Research Faculty member of the School of Advanced Studies. In these posts, Dr. Moreland served as the Founding Editor and Editor in Chief of the Journal of Leadership Studies. Additional past experience includes serving as Director of Institutional Assessment and Planning for the Office of the President at Phoenix
(Arizona) College; Education Research Associate and Accountability Data Administrator with the Arizona Department of Education, and research positions with Collin County Community College (Plano, Texas) and Texas Christian University (TCU). During his career, Dr. Moreland has also held numerous faculty appointments in a variety of subjects, including professor at St. Thomas University and the University of the Rockies; administrative faculty member at the University of Phoenix; graduate student instructor at TCU and adjunct faculty member at Glendale (Ariz.) Community College, Phoenix College, Embry Riddle Aeronautical University and Arizona State University.
Dr. Moreland earned both his Doctor of Philosophy (1998) and Masters of Science (1996) in General Experimental Psychology from TCU, with a research focus on applied cognition and innovative learning media. He is also a 1993 graduate of Stephen F. Austin University in Nacogdoches, Texas, where he received a Bachelor’s Degree in Psychology with a minor in Hearing Impaired Studies/Sign Language. He is a member of the International Leadership Association, American Educational Research Association, and the Association of Psychological Science.
A native of Oklahoma who spent most of his youth in Texas, Dr. Moreland is married to Diane Moreland, who serves as Research Analyst with the Southwest Interdisciplinary Research Center, which is part of the School of Social Work at Arizona State University. Dr. and Mrs. Moreland have two daughters, Maddy and Olivia.