Introducing the Tatums: Northwest’s new president and first lady are focused on investing in the future of the University

Dr. Lance Tatum and his wife, Jill, had finished dinner on a Thursday night last February at their Montgomery, Alabama, home and were settling down to watch TV. They had visited Maryville the prior week – during Lance’s 58th birthday – as the last of four finalists to interview for the roles as Northwest’s next president and first lady. They knew a decision was coming and prayed for their selection.

Lance knows the process of a university presidential search is complex and fragile, with variables that play into every decision. It started earnestly for the Tatums the prior December when Lance was notified that he was being considered to become Northwest’s next president. In January, he interviewed, via Zoom, with the search committee. The morning after that, he received an email inviting him and Jill to visit Maryville and meet campus groups as a finalist for the presidency.

When that Thursday night in February wore on, Lance took their dog outside and left his phone on a table inside the living room. As he returned, Jill told him he missed a phone call from the firm managing Northwest’s search. Lance’s stomach turned with emotion. He knows search firms don’t call the people who aren’t selected for jobs.

He took a minute to catch his breath and headed to the bedroom. He dialed the number and began pacing. The voice on the other side of the call answered, “Hello, Mr. President.”

Why Northwest?

Northwest ushered in its latest era when Lance began his work as the 11th president in the University’s 118-year history on June 1. A crowd of Northwest employees, students, alumni and community members gathered on the front lawn of the Administration Building that morning as the Tatum family – which includes children, Thad and Zoe – received the welcome.

Prior to arriving at Northwest Lance had served since 2019 as the senior vice chancellor for academic affairs and chief academic officer at Troy University in Alabama. It’s the place where he earned a bachelor’s degree in physical education and a master’s degree in foundations of education. It’s also where he served in a variety of roles since joining his alma mater in 1998 as a faculty member in sport and fitness management. He served Troy as vice chancellor for its campus in Montgomery, vice chancellor for its Global Campus, dean of the College of Education, and chair of the Department of Kinesiology and Health Promotion as well as a faculty athletics representative.

As senior vice chancellor, he was responsible for all aspects of Troy’s academic mission and its 32 academic departments, including strategic planning, budgeting, supervising and program reviews.

Jill, who comes from a family of educators, is accomplished in her own career. She spent 14 years as a classroom teacher, beginning in urban Montgomery, and then worked 16 years with the state’s education department, serving as a literacy specialist. She also earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Troy University.

Reviewing Lance’s accomplishments at Troy and hearing the Tatums talk about their appreciation for that institution begs the question: Why Northwest? 

“My goal was to be a university president,” Lance says. “We always said that when the right opportunity opened up, and if we were fortunate enough to be offered the job, we’d be ready. I did not apply to any job that I wouldn’t take.”

The Tatums were ready for a growth opportunity, while Thad and Zoe are exploring their own opportunities as students at Auburn University. As the Tatums learned more about Northwest, they felt a pull to invest in another institution the way Troy University and people in Alabama invested in them.

“When we started meeting people who were associated with Northwest, we were like, ‘Wow, there’s substance here. There’s opportunity here. There’s people here who believe in this place,’” Lance said of his initial interactions at Northwest.  

The couple laughs now about Jill cautioning Lance early in the process not to become emotionally invested in the idea of becoming Northwest’s president. But they couldn’t help it. As the process reached its conclusion and the Tatums returned to Alabama to await a decision, Jill told Lance she would be “devastated” if they weren’t selected.

“We were so passionate about Northwest Missouri State University that we wanted to be a part of the fire,” Jill said. “We wanted to be a part of this culture. We wanted to be a part of what was going on.”

The making of Northwest’s next president

Born in Brinkley, Arkansas, a town of about 4,000 people, Lance’s path to the Northwest presidency began, of course, with his parents. 

His father, Leo, was employed with the clothing company Phillips-Van Heusen Corporation. He was the first in his family to attend college and completed a bachelor’s degree in industrial management at what is now the University of Arkansas at Monticello. Lance’s mother, Betty Jo, never attended college. A skilled basketball player, she received an offer to play at an Arkansas college but wanted to go to work instead and met Leo after she was placed at a Van Heusen sewing machine next to his mother.

Betty Jo, the youngest of nine children, was a fighter, which Lance says factors into his personality as a leader who defends his beliefs and works to find common ground with others.

“She was quick to defend her family,” he said, remembering an oft-told story in the Tatum family of when Lance, as a boy, was called after school to fight a classmate. Betty Jo Tatum insisted they confront the bully and she accompanied her son to the top of a neighborhood hill, where she used some colorful language and snuffed out the ordeal in about 10 seconds. “That was her mentality. She confronted everything head-on.”

During his 40 years in administrative roles with Van Heusen, Leo Tatum moved his family from Brinkley to southern Alabama, back to Brinkley, to Pennsylvania and finally back to southern Alabama. Those moves had a profound effect on Lance and helped him learn to appreciate different communities and cultures.

“All that moving around really helped me learn how to meet people, how to get comfortable within the community,” Lance said. “But it also taught me happiness comes from within and from your relationship with God. It’s not necessarily the place; you make the place. That was a big part of us coming to Maryville.”

The next significant mentor in Lance’s life was Barbara Hicks, a high school English teacher in Ozark, Alabama, who helped him see his leadership potential beyond being a baseball player. With her encouragement, Lance joined the school newspaper and later became its editor. Ironically, the experience earned him a scholarship to Troy, but he decided instead to continue his baseball career at Wallace Community College as an infielder hoping to get a shot at going pro.

Playing college ball, however, was “a real shock to my system, physically as well as emotionally,” Lance said. Two years at Wallace helped him come to a realization that he needed to prepare himself for a different profession.

After a summer of unloading materials from semi-trucks for Van Heusen, Lance enrolled at Troy and began pursuing coursework in sports and recreation. He also knew he needed employment of some kind and found his way into a part-time job at Troy’s aquatics center. It was there that another mentor – Dr. Don Jeffrey, then the director of aquatics at Troy – further altered the course of Lance’s life. Within six months of starting as a desk worker and checking IDs, Lance was supervising the lifeguard staff and developing schedules. As he finished his undergraduate degree, Lance was teaching sailing.

Jeffrey, who later became dean of Troy’s College of Health and Human Services, encouraged Lance to advance his education, first by completing a master’s degree and then a Ph.D. in sport management at Florida State University. It was Jeffrey again who helped bring Lance back to Troy as a department chair and then, while Jeffrey was a vice chancellor, recommended Lance to become Troy’s chief academic officer. 

The care and mentorship of people like his parents, Barbara Hicks and Don Jeffrey played pivotal roles in Lance’s successful career. But as Lance moved up the administrative ladder at Troy, leaving his mark on a diverse set of people and programs, a void in his life was filled when he met Jill. During his introductory news conference at Northwest last March, Lance called her his “greatest supporter and most constructive sounding board.”

Lance was raising Thad and Zoe, his children from a previous marriage, as a single father when his sister and a friend of Jill’s matched the couple. Lance and Jill had crossed paths as Troy students, but their connection then never amounted to more. Today, they have been happily married for eight years.

“Jill just has this light about her that makes you feel important, connected and loved,” Lance said. “I always thought that was the most remarkable thing – that we could walk into a room, because almost immediately she gets thrown into this environment where we’re having to go to community events or institutional events, and it was like she had been a part of those groups her entire life.”

Envisioning Northwest’s future

As the Tatums enter the second half of their first year at Northwest, planning is underway for Lance’s inauguration on April 19, when the new president will outline his vision for the University.

Since arriving in Maryville, the Tatums have focused on educating themselves about Northwest’s culture, history and traditions – while taking care not to disrupt the University’s momentum.

Fall gatherings with alumni and friends in Kansas City, Omaha and Des Moines – dubbed the “Tatum Tour” – gave the couple an opportunity to meet and begin to build relationships with people who are closely connected with Northwest. Additionally, the president has accepted numerous invitations to speak with community groups, and the couple has hosted several student and alumni groups at the Thomas Gaunt House, the historic presidential residence on the Northwest campus.

“Northwest Missouri State has a rich and very strong past,” Lance told a group of alumni and friends who gathered in October to meet him in Kansas City. “It doesn’t take a lot of time and conversation to see how the University has impacted the lives of its graduates. What speaks to Jill and I when we talk to outside groups, it’s about the student. During my interviewing process, I tried to make sure that the committee and everyone understood – for me it’s about serving students.”

While Lance believes the foundation of Northwest is strong, he recognizes the University has challenges, too, and one of his first charges is to stabilize enrollment. Although Northwest achieved another record overall headcount this fall, the number of degree-seeking undergraduate students – the students at the core of the campus culture who occupy classrooms, live on and around the campus, and participate in student organizations – is short of where the University wants it to be.

Northwest is not an outlier in that area as higher education works to recover from the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and braces for the so-called “enrollment cliff” as fewer students enter and graduate high school. To offset any projected enrollment drop, Northwest recently restructured its scholarship model and continues to adjust recruitment strategies to remain competitive in the higher ed market.

“I knew coming in that there were no major cracks in how Northwest was conducting business,” Lance said. “Decisions had been made before my arrival that put the University in a really strong position. Now, the challenges are the challenges of higher ed; the challenges are the challenges of regional universities. But those were not a surprise to me.”

Among his other priorities during the fall was signing off on an overhaul of Northwest’s antiquated infrastructure. In September, the Board of Regents gave its approval for the University to embark on a project that will transform and modernize the campus’s central plant. The total cost is estimated to be no more than $105 million and it will take two to three years to complete, making it the largest capital project in the institution’s history.

At the core of the new president’s vision is reinvesting in Northwest. That means enhancing Northwest as an attractive place that provides students with a memorable college experience and prepares them for gainful employment, and supporting the institution’s employees with resources necessary to ensure the University’s sustainability for the long term.

“What I’ve really been pleased to begin to understand is that people have this great sense of what is next,” Lance said. “People are hungry for what is the next evolutionary step for this University. I think that is probably the greatest motivating factor for me.”

As the Tatums serve Northwest as president and first lady, they will continue to draw inspiration from the people who invested in them and helped them be successful in their careers.

“Everything we do will come from that perspective,” Lance said. “It is not about Lance Tatum or Jill Tatum. It is about Northwest, and we will do what is in the best interest of Northwest.”