Dr. Alysson Satterlund
UTC on Tuesday and Wednesday hosted its finalists to succeed UTC's retiring Chancellor Steven Angle. There are two candidates.
Dr. Alysson Satterlund from UC San Diego was in Tuesday and met with representative groups of faculty, staff, students and key community leaders. She held a public forum on campus.
Dr. Lori Mann Bruce visited on Wednesday and also held a public forum on campus. Dr. Bruce is currently the provost and vice president for Academic Affairs at Tennessee Technological University.
About the candidates:
Dr. Satterlund serves as the vice chancellor for Student Affairs and Campus Life at UC San Diego, where she provides executive-level leadership and strategic oversight for a comprehensive portfolio focused on student well-being, engagement and success. Since joining the university in 2018, she has advanced initiatives supporting campus-wide equity and inclusion, student-centered services, community partnerships and public arts engagement. As the university’s chief student affairs officer, she provides oversight to collaborative and cross-cutting initiatives, services, programs and policies for a student-centered experience for a diverse and growing university community.
A first-generation college graduate, Dr. Satterlund has served in higher education leadership roles for nearly 30 years. She began her professional journey while an undergraduate and master’s student at CSU Chico, where she worked in campus services and discovered her passion for student development. She holds a Ph.D. in Communication Studies from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Dr. Bruce serves as provost and vice president for Academic Affairs at Tennessee Technological University, where she leads academic operations, research and scholarship, and strategic planning. Under her leadership, Tennessee Tech achieved a perfect academic program quality score from the state—the first university to do so in over 40 years—and significantly expanded its academic offerings, launching multiple new bachelor’s, master’s, and Ph.D. programs aligned with workforce needs.
Dr. Bruce has led the faculty through growth in research funding and scholarship, increasing extramural awards from $16 million to over $46 million annually. During her tenure as provost, campus infrastructure projects have totaled over $350 million, including the construction of multiple new buildings for science and engineering. A champion of faculty development, she launched the Center for Advancing Faculty Excellence and led a university-wide compensation study that improved faculty and staff salaries.
Previously, she served as associate vice president and dean of the Graduate School at Mississippi State University and held college-level leadership roles in engineering and research. Dr. Bruce holds a Ph.D. in electrical and computer engineering and has extensive experience in crisis leadership, fundraising, academic planning and research administration.
Dr. Lori Mann Bruce