COLUMBIA, Mo.
(AP) -- One of the University of Missouri's first black law
school graduates was appointed Thursday to lead the four-campus system
through a tumultuous period of racial unrest, drawing praise from
students who said he's well-equipped to confront the problems they felt
his predecessor largely ignored.
Michael
Middleton, 68, has spent 30 years at the university - as an
undergraduate, law student, faculty member and finally, administrator.
At a news conference announcing his appointment as the university
system's interim president, he vowed to take on the racial problems that
inspired the protests that helped force Monday's abrupt resignation of
President Tim Wolfe and another top administrator.
"I have seen the system grow and excel over the years and I look with great optimism in the future," said Middleton.
He
said the university "has faced its share of troubling incidents and we
recognize that we must move forward as a community. We must embrace
these issues as they come, and they will come to define us in the
future."
MU Policy Now, a student group made
up of graduate and professional students, had been pushing for the
president's role to go to Middleton, who retired as deputy chancellor of
the Columbia campus in August and had been made a deputy chancellor
emeritus. He had been working part-time to assist Loftin design a plan
to increase inclusion and diversity on campus.
"Given
the recent turmoil, Deputy Chancellor Emeritus Middleton is a strong
transitional figure," the group wrote in a letter of endorsement posted
on its Facebook page and sent to curators. Several student organizations
signed the recommendation letter, including the Legion of Black
Collegians.
Second-year law student Christopher Hamm, president of the school's Black Law Students Association, applauded the appointment.
"There is nobody better suited to lead this university than Mike Middleton," said Hamm, 22, of Cincinnati, Ohio.
Ben
Trachtenberg, an associate law professor who chairs the Columbia
campus' Faculty Council on University Policy, also praised it, calling
Middleton "a very smart guy who knows a ton about the university."
"I have nothing but good things to say about Mike," Trachtenberg told The Associated Press.
Middleton
takes over at a turbulent time for the university. Black student groups
had been calling for change over the administration's handling of
racial issues and were given a boost last weekend when 30 black football
players vowed not to take part in team activities until Wolfe was gone.
Wolfe
and the chancellor of the Columbia campus, R. Bowen Loftin, abruptly
resigned on Monday. On Thursday, the board said Loftin's resignation
timeline had been accelerated and that his interim replacement, Hank
Foley, had already assumed that role. Loftin will take a different
position at the university.
Meanwhile
Thursday, authorities announced that a third Missouri man had been
charged for allegedly posting anonymous online threats to attack college
campuses.
Hunter M. Park, a 19-year-old
student at the Missouri University of Science and Technology in Rolla
who was the first of the three to be charged, appeared in court Thursday
via a video feed from a Columbia jail, where he was ordered held
without bond. He is charged with making a terroristic threat, which is
punishable by up to seven years in prison.
Park
is accused of making threatening posts that showed up Tuesday on the
anonymous location-based messaging app Yik Yak and were concerning
enough that some classes were canceled and some Columbia businesses
closed for the day.
One of the threats said:
"Some of you are alright. Don't go to campus tomorrow" - a warning
campus police Officer Dustin Heckmaster said in a probable cause
statement that he recognized as one that appeared ahead of last month's
Oregon college shooting involving a gunman who killed nine people and
himself.
Heckmaster wrote that after tracking
the postings to Park's cellphone number, he confronted the sophomore
computer science major in his Rolla dorm room and that Park admitted
that the posts were "inappropriate."
He said he asked if the threats
amounted to "saber rattling," and Park responded, "pretty much."
When
questioned specifically what he meant by the phrase, "Some of you are
alright. Don't go to campus tomorrow," Park "smiled and stated, 'I was
quoting something,'" Heckmaster wrote. When pressed whether it was
mimicking a posting that preceded the Oregon attack, Park replied,
"Mmhmm."
When asked why, Park said, "I don't know. I just ... deep interest," Heckmaster wrote.
A
message left on Park's mother's cellphone was not returned, and there
was no response Wednesday to knocks on the door of the family's home in
the affluent St. Louis suburb of Lake St. Louis.
A
second student was arrested at Northwest Missouri State University in
Maryville for allegedly posting a threat on Yik Yak that read, "I'm
gonna shoot any black people tomorrow, so be ready." Nodaway County
Prosecutor Robert Rice on Thursday filed one misdemeanor and one felony
count of making a terrorist threat against Connor Stottlemyre, a
freshman at the school in Maryville. Online court records did not list
an attorney for him.
Prosecutors also charged
another 19-year-old, Tyler Bradenberg of St. Louis, with a felony count
of making a terrorist threat. An arrest warrant has been issued for him.
Authorities say Brandenberg posted "I'm gonna shoot up this school" on
Yik Yak on Wednesday. It was apparently aimed at the Missouri University
of Science & Technology in Rolla, where he studied chemical
engineering for a semester last fall.
Phelps
County prosecuting attorney Brendon Fox said he didn't know if
Bradenberg had an attorney, and he doesn't have a listed phone number.
