A new Sheriff is coming to Southeast

Southeast Missouri State University announced Monday that Brad Sheriff will be the school’s new vice president for finance and administration, effective Aug. 1.

Sheriff will succeed Kathy Mangels, who will work alongside Sheriff until her planned retirement this fall.

Sheriff, who holds a Ph.D in global leadership with a specialization in higher education administration from Indiana Institute of Technology in Fort Wayne, comes to Southeast after four years as vice chancellor in a similar role at the University of Arkansas at Fort Smith. Previously, Sheriff worked in finance for the University of Nebraska at Lincoln.

At UAFS, Sheriff oversaw an overall $80 million budget while supervising finance and business services, human resources, plant operations, IT services and the university police.

Southeast’s budget for the fiscal year beginning Wednesday is just over $139 million.

Sheriff comes to Southeast as the university deals with a five-year overall drop in enrollment and less funding from the pandemic-strapped State of Missouri.

Mangels told the board of regents June 22 to expect a 25% reduction in state appropriations to the university over the next three years. Most of the cut — 20% or $8.96 million — is expected to be applied in the coming year.

Southeast hit an all-time enrollment high in Fall 2014 with 11,580 undergraduate and graduate students combined. In five years, the student census has dropped nearly 12% to 9,546 in Fall 2019.

“This is such a challenging time for higher education,” said Sheriff in a news release, “but with great challenges come great opportunities.”

Sheriff and his wife, Launa, have one daughter, Lauren.