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Colin Potts, vice provost for undergraduate education and professor of interactive computing at Georgia Tech, has accepted a position as provost and executive vice chancellor of Academic Affairs at Missouri University of Science and Technology (Missouri S&T). He will be at Tech through late May.

Potts has led Georgia Tech’s Office of Undergraduate Education since 2012, overseeing offices and programs affecting undergraduate education including Serve-Learn-Sustain, the Honors Program, Undergraduate Advising and Transition, Academic Enrichment Programs, Tutoring and Academic Support, Complete College Georgia and Retention, Summer Session Initiatives, the Career Center, and Pre-Graduate and Pre-Professional Advising. He has led or convened task forces on academic advising, the academic calendar, and curricular flexibility. On the national scene, Potts is president of the Reinvention Collaborative, a coalition of more than 80 national research universities focusing on undergraduate education in research-intensive environments.

“We have all benefited tremendously from Colin Potts’ commitment to the students, faculty, and staff of Georgia Tech,” said Steven McLaughlin, provost and executive vice president for Academic Affairs. “The same innovative spirit in his teaching and research is reflected in his leadership. He redesigned and strengthened academic advising and led the consolidation of Career Services and Cooperative Education to create C2D2. I am also personally very grateful for his work on the Strategic Plan Steering Committee and the Georgia Tech Covid-19 Task Force. Over the past almost three decades, he has left his mark on Georgia Tech, and I know he will make great contributions in his new role at Missouri S&T.”

Potts joined the Georgia Tech faculty in 1992 and is a professor in the School of Interactive Computing. His research has spanned the fields of requirements engineering, software design methods, human-computer interaction, and information privacy. Potts designed and taught courses at all levels in software engineering, human-computer interaction design and the social implications of computing, and received the 2010 William “Gus” Baird Faculty Teaching Award and the 2012 Eichholz Faculty Teaching Award. He frequently teaches introductory courses in computer science to non-majors. He has conducted nine study abroad programs in Oxford and Barcelona, and has led a living learning community.

In 2014, the Georgia Tech Undergraduate House of Representatives presented him with the Dean James E. Dull Administrator of the Year Award. That same year, the Georgia Tech Student Ambassadors presented him with the Modern Day Aristotle Award. 

Before joining Georgia Tech, Potts worked as a senior member of the technical staff at Microelectronics and Computer Technology Corporation in Austin. A native of England, he earned a Ph.D. from Sheffield University in cognitive psychology.

The Office of Undergraduate Education will remain under his leadership while a search commences. Details on the search process and the leadership transition will be announced later this spring.