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Bichelmeyer Named UMKC Interim Chancellor

Janet Rogers
/
UMKC Communications

University of Missouri System President Mun Choi named an interim chancellor to the University of Missouri-Kansas City today.

Barbara Bichelmeyer will serve as interim chancellor of UMKC effective August 15, when Chancellor Leo E. Morton retires. Bichelmeyer is currently provost and executive vice chancellor at the university.

Morton has been chancellor since 2008, and he announced his retirement in May.

“I have every confidence in Provost Bichelmeyer and her ability to lead UMKC to new heights, despite some of the challenging times currently facing higher education,” Choi said in a statement released by the UM System today.

Bichelmeyer’s appointment will be in effect until a new, permanent chancellor is named. 

Sara Shahriari was the assistant news director at KBIA-FM, and she holds a master's degree from the Missouri School of Journalism. Sara hosted and was executive producer of the PRNDI award-winning weekly public affairs talk show Intersection. She also worked with many of KBIA’s talented student reporters and teaches an advanced radio reporting lab. She previously worked as a freelance journalist in Bolivia for six years, where she contributed print, radio and multimedia stories to outlets including Al Jazeera America, Bloomberg News, the Guardian, the Christian Science Monitor, Deutsche Welle and Indian Country Today. Sara’s work has focused on mental health, civic issues, women’s and children’s rights, policies affecting indigenous peoples and their lands and the environment. While earning her MA at the Missouri School of Journalism, Sara produced the weekly Spanish-language radio show Radio Adelante. Her work with the KBIA team has been recognized with awards from the Society of Professional Journalists and PRNDI, among others, and she is a two-time recipient of funding from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.