The Chancellor's Biography
Dr. Robert L. Potts
Chancellor, Arkansas State University-Jonesboro

Dr. Robert L. Potts is the first chancellor of Arkansas State University-Jonesboro. After an extensive search process, the veteran administrator in higher education was selected to lead the Jonesboro campus. Arkansas State University-Jonesboro numbers its student enrollment at 10,727. These students come from 72 Arkansas counties, 35 states, and 46 other countries. The Arkansas State University System also maintains campuses in Jonesboro, Beebe, Heber Springs, Marked Tree, Mountain Home, Newport, and Searcy, and an institutional site in Paragould. In addition, the university has degree centers in Blytheville, Forrest City, and West Memphis. The Arkansas State University System enrollment is more than 17,200 students in credit and non-credit courses in 25 locations across Arkansas, and numerous on-line courses offered via the internet.

Dr. Potts has had a distinguished career in higher education, most recently serving as the Chancellor of the North Dakota University system. Previously, he served as president of the University of North Alabama. He also served as general counsel for the University of Alabama System and was managing partner in the Florence, Ala. law firm Potts & Young, with an emphasis in educational law.

Dr. Potts attended Newbold College, Bracknell, Berkshire, England, and graduated cum laude from Southern Adventist University, Collegedale, Tenn., with a Bachelor of Arts degree, in 1966. He graduated from the University of Alabama School of Law in 1969 with a Juris Doctor degree, and served as an editor of the Alabama Law Review. He graduated from Harvard University with the degree Master of Laws in 1971.

 Dr. Potts met his wife, Irene Elisabeth Johansson, a native of Sweden, while they were participating in an international educational program in England. Now married for 41 years, they are the parents of two adult children. Julie Anna Potts and her husband Parks Shackelford live in the Washington, D.C. area, where Julie Anna is general counsel for the American Farm Bureau Federation and Parks, a native of Jones, La., currently works for Florida Crystals, a sugar cane company. The couple are the parents of twin daughters, Ella Barlow and Olivia Madison Shackelford, and one son, Amos Duke Shackelford. Robert Leslie Potts, Jr. is employed by Mississippi State University Foundation as a pilot. Les Potts and his wife Holly Pebworth are the parents of two daughters, Claire Elisabeth Potts and Anna Leslie Potts.

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