Meet the Provost
Charles Taber serves as the Provost and Executive Vice President of Kansas State University, providing strategic leadership on all aspects of university governance and the academic enterprise. As the university’s Chief Academic Officer, Provost Taber is responsible for all undergraduate and graduate academic programs, overseeing academic planning, resource allocation, and innovation while ensuring excellence and relevance in the design of the curriculum. He is focused on the quality of teaching and learning; providing global perspective and strategic direction to successfully manage operating budgets; and enhancing the quality of the student experience at all levels.
The deans of the nine academic colleges, the K-State Libraries, Graduate School, Global Campus, Staley School of Leadership, and the CEOs and deans of both K-State Salina and K-State Olathe report to Taber. University offices also reporting to Taber include Enrollment Management, Institutional Effectiveness, Institutional Research and Assessment, International Programs, and Student Success. Taber also serves as the university's chief executive officer in the president's absence.
Provost Taber works closely with President Richard Linton and the K-State community to advance the university’s K-State 2025 strategic plan. He plays an essential role in the implementation of the Strategic Enrollment Management and Budget Modernization initiatives as the university works to stabilize and build enrollment and adopt a new budget model to better address the many funding challenges facing higher education. As the higher education landscape continues to evolve, he will address and identify opportunities to advance K-State's land-grant mission.
Provost Taber works closely with the K-State Foundation and President Myers on the university’s comprehensive development campaign, is responsible for the university’s academic reporting to the Kansas Board of Regents, and serves on several boards, including K-State Athletics.
Taber came to K-State from the position of Vice Provost for Graduate and Professional Education and Dean of the Graduate School at Stony Brook University, New York, and served in that position from 2013 through 2018. He joined Stony Brook in 1989 as an instructor of political science, earning a promotion to full professor in 2008. He served in many administrative positions at the university, including associate dean for postdoctoral affairs, dean of the School of Professional Development and interim provost and senior vice president for academic affairs. At Stony Brook, he was involved with graduate enrollment management and addressing budget challenges in higher education.
A leading scholar in the fields of political psychology and computational modeling, Taber has more than 50 scholarly publications. Provost Taber has been a pioneer in the use of computational modeling and political science and his work has earned millions of dollars in grant funding from the National Science Foundation. His research has contributed to the growing literature on the psychological mechanisms that drive public opinion. In 2000, he received the Paul Lazersfeld outstanding paper award from the American Political Science Association for a paper on the causes of bias in political reasoning, published in the American Journal of Political Science. Along with Milton Lodge, Taber developed an influential theory of unconscious thinking in political behavior. Their 2013 book, "The Rationalizing Voter," from Cambridge University Press, won the Robert E. Lane Book Award and the Book of the Year Awards from the Experimental Politics and Migration and Citizenship Sections of the American Political Science Association.
Provost Taber’s research and career has been the subject of numerous profiles in the scientific and popular press. Provost Taber has edited the journal Political Psychology, and serves on the editorial boards of several leading political science journals. Taber has directed 15 completed PhD dissertations and dozens of undergraduate independent research projects and senior honors theses.
His teaching and research interests include diversity in higher education, budgeting in higher education, political psychology, public opinion and international relations. Taber earned his doctorate and master's degree in political science from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign and a bachelor's degree in political science from East Tennessee State University.
