June 3, 2020 641 PM
AUSTIN — The Texas State University System Board of Regents honored outgoing Sul Ross President Dr. Bill Kibler as president emeritus during a resolution reading at the regents spring meeting in Austin last week.
Dr. Kibler will retire in June after six years as SRSU president.
The resolution entitled TSUS/SRSU: Resolution Honoring Dr. William L. “Bill” Kibler, president of the Sul Ross State University and Order Conferring of President Emeritus Status highlighted the outgoing president’s academic successes, his time in higher education and his many accomplishments within Sul Ross during his tenure.
Kibler spent nearly 45 years in higher education, beginning in 1976 in student affairs at the University of Florida. He spent 24 years in the Division of Student Affairs at Texas A&M University, the final year as vice president, and 10 years as vice president for student affairs at Mississippi State University before becoming the twelfth president of Sul Ross State University in 2014.
He restructured the university’s support organization into the Sul Ross State University Foundation Board of Directors, oversaw the receipt of three gifts for endowed professor positions, supported fundraising efforts by the Museum of the Big Bend, resulting in $2.5 million in gifts in two years, followed by a $5 million gift — the largest in the university’s history — for the museum’s expansion and lead development of a strategic plan through 2022 and creation of a first-of-its-kind Strategic Enrollment Management Plan.
The board of regents also celebrated Kibler’s open door policy for students, where he frequently invited them to his office to chat or answer questions and, to the surprise of many, provided new students and their parents his cell phone number during student orientations.
The resolution also touched on Kibler’s life, saying he “actively reflects his favorite quote by the 18th Century theologian, John Wesley, ‘Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can, as long as ever you can,’ having served as a deacon at the First Baptist Church in Alpine, and with his wife, having fostered a total of 37 children over a 15-year period in both Texas and Mississippi,” along with parenting their six children.
The Board of Regents of the Texas State University System unanimously adopted the resolution, recognizing Kibler and thanking him for his service to Sul Ross State University, its students, faculty and staff.
