Ball State provost to be next Aurora University president

Ball State University’s provost will be the next president of Aurora University.

Susana Rivera-Mills has been the chief academic officer for the Muncie school since July 2018, joining after two years of interim provosts.

Read More from 2018: Ball State’s New Provost: “Not Just A Job”

Aurora University in Illinois is a private four-year school with more than 6,000 students. The school says it’s recognized by the US as a “Minority-Serving Institution” and 40 percent of undergraduate students transfer in from first taking classes elsewhere. Rivera-Mills succeeds the first female president at Aurora, one that’s been in the job for 22 years.

The El Salvador native came to the US when she was 12, and spoke no English. She then became a first-generation college student, earning a bachelor’s, master’s, and doctorate.

In a statement, Rivera-Mills says “higher education is a place of increasing challenges and accelerated change” and she wants Aurora to be a model for serving “a diverse community of learners.”

Rivera-Mills will leave Ball State at the end of the month and join Aurora in June. University president Geoffrey Mearns wished her well and said he’ll appoint an interim provost in the next two weeks.