Meet the Provost

Provost White claps for the graduates at a recent commencement ceremony
A historian by training and native Arkansan, Dr. Calvin White, Jr. brings nearly 20 years of successive academic leadership experience and scholarly distinction to Arkansas State University.

Provost Calvin White headshot in front of bookshelf

Leadership and Strategic Impact at Arkansas State University

Dr. Calvin White, Jr. is Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor of Arkansas State University, where he serves as chief academic officer and leader of the institution’s largest division, the Office of Academic Affairs and Research. This includes 12 academic colleges, the Arkansas Biosciences Institute, A-State Heritage Sites, two museums, and the A-State Reserve Officer Training Program regiment.

Since joining A-State in 2023, White has played a strategic role in advancing the university’s academic distinction and contributing to its institutional growth, while strengthening research advancement and workforce development. Under his leadership, the University established Arkansas’ first and only College of Veterinary Medicine from conception to its first class anticipated in fall 2026. During this period, enrollment has expanded to more than 17,000 students and counting, 58% of whom are first generation. White himself was a first-generation student and is the first African American to be named provost and executive vice chancellor at Arkansas State University.

Prior Leadership Experience

Prior to joining A-State, White spent nearly 20 years at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, where his career was marked by successive leadership roles at the departmental and college levels including as senior associate dean of the university’s largest and most diverse academic unit, the Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences.

In this role, he was a key administrator with direct oversight of multiple academic areas including programs, departments, schools, and major centers, such as the Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, the Diane Blair Center for Southern Politics and Society, and the Arkansas Humanities Center.

Scholarship and Honors

White is a historian who has been awarded numerous teaching and mentorship accolades and whose research focuses on the African American experience in the Arkansas and Mississippi Delta, which has led to multiple publications.

He served as a fellow in the SEC Academic Leadership Program and earned numerous top teaching, advising and service awards, including the Fulbright College Master Teacher Award and the Dr. John and Mrs. Lois Imhoff Award for Outstanding Teaching and Student Mentorship. He was inducted into the University of Arkansas’s Teaching Academy and served as a Gilder-Lehrman Fellow at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem, New York. Further, White has lectured at the University of Sussex in Brighton, England, and presented research at the Obama Institute at the University of Mainz, in Mainz, Germany.

Education and Background

White earned a Ph.D. in history at the University of Mississippi and holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Central Arkansas. A native Arkansan with deep ties to the Delta community, White has spent extensive time in east and west Africa, Europe, and other international locations. He credits these combined experiences with both enriching his personal scholarship and skills in academic leadership, as well as broadening his global outlook.

White enjoys quiet hours in libraries and jazz, but above all values time spent with his family, considering his greatest accomplishments to be those of husband and father, roles he holds in the highest regard.