Dr. Bud Fischer began serving as Western Kentucky University’s (WKU) Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs in July 2021.

As the chief academic officer, Provost Fischer provides leadership to WKU’s five colleges and oversees the university’s academic resources, support units, and instructional and research programs. Establishing the academic priorities for the university, Fischer leads initiatives designed to promote student and faculty success and ensures the quality of student learning at the graduate and undergraduate levels. Providing leadership to the faculty, Fischer manages the processes for faculty recruitment, appointments, promotions, and tenure.

Before joining WKU, Dr. Fischer served as Dean of the College of Basic and Applied Sciences (CBAS) at Middle Tennessee State University (MTSU), a public regional comprehensive university with 21,000 students. In this role, Bud led CBAS’s strategic planning initiative, spearheaded the development of the interdisciplinary Data Science initiative.  Led the development of the College’s Quest for a Student Success initiative that focused on increasing retention and graduation rate.  Dr. Fischer also oversaw the growth in Research and Graduate activity in the College and led the development of the college plan to expand recruitment and increase enrollment.  In addition, he provided leadership for a Making Excellence Inclusive initiative to identify and remove barriers for students from underrepresented groups.

Prior to moving to MTSU, Dr. Fischer spent four years as chair of the Biology Department at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and fifteen years at Eastern Illinois University where he was Professor of Biology and Associate Chair of the Department of Biological Sciences.  Dr. Fischer started his career working for the University of Georgia’s Savannah River Ecology Laboratory as the research coordinator for the physiological ecology laboratory.

Dr. Fischer’s expertise is in aquatic ecology, fisheries biology, stream ecology and evolutionary biology, and his research has focused on the following two specific areas: 1) examining changes in morphology, physiology, behavior and life-history traits of bluegills and other aquatic organisms in response to environmental perturbation, and 2) determining the effects of land-use practices on stream ecosystems.  Dr. Fischer has made more than one hundred professional presentations, published over twenty-five peer-reviewed articles, obtained sixty grants totaling more than $3 million and has mentored forty graduate students to completion during his academic career.

Dr. Bud Fischer is a native of Buffalo, New York.  He received his BS in forest ecology from the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry School at Syracuse, his MS in Biology from the State University of New York College at Buffalo and his PhD. in Ecology from the University of South Carolina.