The State of Innovation Summit 2009

Lou Anna K. Simon is the 20th president of Michigan State University, leading the way to Advancing Knowledge and Transforming Lives. She served as provost and vice president for academic affairs from 1993-2004, interim president in 2003 and was appointed president by the MSU Board of Trustees in January 2005.

President Simon has a distinguished history with MSU. After earning her doctorate in administration and higher education from MSU in 1974, she became a member of the MSU faculty and assistant director of the Office of Institutional Research (now the Office of Planning and Budgets). From there, she moved into a variety of administrative roles, including assistant provost for general academic administration during the 1980s and associate provost in the early 1990s.

Simon’s commitment to the land-grant tradition of applying education in many areas, particularly in economic development and globalization, has been demonstrated on a national level through her involvement as a member of the Council on Competitiveness and the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities, formerly the National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges (NASULGC). Simon was appointed to the State of Michigan Governor’s Emergency Financial Advisory Panel and she has served as a member of the Lt. Governor’s Commission on Higher Education and Economic Growth (Cherry Commission). She is a member of the Michigan Strategic Economic Investment and Commercialization Board (SEIC), the Detroit Renaissance Board of Directors, and locally with Prima Civitas. Furthermore, she is a member of the Executive Committee of the Partnership to Cut Hunger and Poverty in Africa, a global initiative.