While there is no official release rumblings have been heard on campus, on twitter and on Power Mizzou that R Bowen Loftin to be named new Mizzou Chancellor

Bowen has been credited to spearheading aTm's move to the SEC and also for the fundraising successes they have had this year. Here are some things aTm has accomplished under his time there, they recently joined the AAU, which is a tough thing to get invited to. The only schools to join the AAU in the last 30 years are: Boston University, Brendeis University, Emory University, Georgia Tech, Rice University, SUNY-Stony Brook, Texas A&M, UC-Davis, UC-Irvine, and the University of Florida. A&M is top 20 in research dollars, endowment, etc. Also a huge school of over 53k students and yet they still have an average ACT score of 27. They've been high growth while steadily improving in quality as well. Also their athletic department has been growing in leaps and bounds, and they'll soon have one of the top 5 biggest football stadiums in America. This Loftin guy was their CEO for the past few years. Hiring this guy means we want to keep climbing the ladder and moving up in the world.

If you look at research dollars, Missouri has moved up from around 95th place 20 years ago to 69th place as of the last time they released those numbers (a 2-3 years ago). Enrollment has gone up by around 10k since I enrolled at Mizzou 15 years ago. The athletic budget has more than doubled since then. We've got $200M in improvements on the way, but with us winning division titles and with SEC Network money on the way, we could aim a lot higher than that. Really we need to spend about $500M to catch up to the Auburns and Georgias and Tennessees of the SEC. And at least that much on the academic side to catch up to the Iowas, Michigan States, Indianas that we rightfully should be on par with academically.

For too long we've been looking at schools like Iowa State and Colorado as our peer institutions. Hiring away A&M's president shows me we have bigger ambitions.

If true I am encouraged by this hire. Hopefully it works out well.