Kim Wilcox
Dr. Kim A. Wilcox serves as the ninth chancellor of UC Riverside where he has overseen transformational change since assuming his role in 2013. During Chancellor Wilcox’s tenure, UCR has become a national model for achieving student success, particularly across socio-economic and ethnic categories, receiving the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities (APLU) “Project Degree Completion Award.” Named the No. 1 public university in the country for social mobility by U.S. News for four years running, UCR has also been described as “fastest rising” for its rapid ascendency through rankings and “most transformative” for its impact on students.
As the university’s chief executive, Chancellor Wilcox has led expansive growth in research, enrollment, graduation rates, and physical development. The campus has added schools of medicine and public policy. Enrollment has grown more than 25%. UCR has also grown its faculty, adding two Nobel Prize winners while increasing the racial, ethnic, and gender diversity among incoming faculty members. To support these increases, the campus has added more than 2 million square feet in leading-edge laboratory facilities, state-of-the-art classrooms, and residential and dining facilities.
Chancellor Wilcox has been a leading and influential national voice in the reassessment of higher education rankings systems to value metrics such as social mobility and student outcomes over wealth and exclusivity. His commentary has appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Politico, the Chronicle of Higher Education, and other news organizations.
Wilcox was one of the founding leaders of the University Innovation Alliance (UIA) and the alliance of Hispanic Serving Research Universities (HSRU). He serves on the Council of Competitiveness and on boards for numerous organizations including the Coalition of Urban Serving Universities and Climate Leadership Network. Chancellor Wilcox has been a featured speaker and panelist at national conferences for the American Council on Education, Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities, and the Council for Advancement and Support of Education.
A first-generation college graduate, Wilcox attended Michigan State University, where he earned a Bachelor of Arts in audiology and speech sciences. He also holds master’s and doctoral degrees in speech and hearing science from Purdue University. His research focuses on speech acoustics, and he has directed teaching, research, and service projects funded by the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Education. Prior to UCR, he served as provost at Michigan State, dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Kansas, and president and chief executive officer of the Kansas Board of Regents.