Mark Meister, professor of communications at Central Washington University, is a candidate for the dean of humanities and social sciences position at Emporia State. Meister has been a tenured professor at CWU since 2020 and has held multiple academic and administrative positions throughout his three-decade-long career.

Meister holds a Bachelor of Arts in Speech Communication and English Writing from Carroll College (1991), a Master of Arts in Speech Communication from North Dakota State University (1994), and a Doctor of Philosophy in Communication Studies from the University of Nebraska – Lincoln (1997). During his graduate studies, he worked as a graduate teaching assistant. While in his doctoral program, he was an instructor at Southeast Community College and then an adjunct faculty member at Nebraska Wesleyan University, both in Lincoln.

After graduating from UNL, he returned to NDSU as an assistant professor and was promoted to associate professor by 2002. In 2009, he was awarded an endowed professorship before being promoted to professor in 2014, a position he stayed in until 2020. In 2009 and 2012, he also worked as an affiliated faculty member at the Georgian Institute for Public Affairs.

While teaching at NDSU, Meister held multiple administrative positions. He spent two years as the director of graduate studies for the department of communication. For the 09-10 school year, he was the President of the University Senate where he “prioritized the creation, coordination, discussion, and approval” of different NSDU policies. In this position, he also served on the North Dakota State Board of Higher Education’s Council of College Faculties as a member of NSDU’s Presidential Search Committee, Program Review Committee and Policy Coordination Committee.

In 2011, Meister was appointed interim department of communication chairperson, then was elected into the position in 2012. His highlights from this position include expanding the department’s degree offerings from two to five. He led efforts to boost student retention and graduation rates, increasing the 2011 department undergraduate enrollment from 62 to 317 in 2018; retention and graduation rates saw significant increases in this department during this time frame as well. Meister also initiated a collaborative student success system that allowed interaction and communication between students and advisors. 

From 2017 until he departed from NDSU, Meister was director of the general education public speaking course, where he oversaw 60 sections of public speaking and trained 25 instructors and graduate teaching assistants. During this time, he also acted as Chairperson of the Senate Committee on Academic Integrity, a committee that investigated 12 different alleged misconduct cases.

In 2020, Meister began teaching as a professor with tenure and associate dean of the college of arts and humanities at CWU. As dean, Mesiter was responsible for academic student affairs programming and oversight, enrollment management, budget administration, faculty recruitment, evaluation and retention, interdisciplinary partnerships and summer school administration. He held this position until 2023. 

Per his resume, Meister’s research interests include incorporating “rhetorical criticism and argumentation theory to critically evaluate historical and contemporary economic, environmental, and scientific rhetoric.” He has numerous publications, editing and reviewing credits and has frequently presented his research at conventions since 1991. 

Meister is the recipient of many academic, teaching and service awards like the Excellence in Advising Award – National Mortar Board Association (2001), the Outstanding Scholar Award – North Dakota Speech & Theatre Association (2004), the Outstanding Service Award – NDSU College of AHSS (2010) and a Fulbright (2011) which he had to decline.

View Mesiter’s full resume here.