MSU faculty named SEC Academic Leadership Development Program Fellows

Contact: Carl Smith

STARKVILLE, Miss.—Four Mississippi State administrators and faculty are 2025-26 Southeastern Conference Academic Leadership Development Program Fellows—a preeminent status recognizing emerging leaders in higher education.

Established in 2008, the ALDP identifies, prepares and promotes academic leaders within the SEC and beyond. Fellows holding leadership positions and academic specialties are selected through a competitive process, and they participate in individual university development programs and attend two conferencewide workshops per year, including this year’s fall conference held this week at MSU.

MSU’s 2025-26 SEC ALDP cohort includes:

—Kenneth Anthony, professor and head, Department of Teacher Education and Leadership, College of Education

—Christy Bratcher, professor and head, Department of Animal and Dairy Sciences, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences

—Alicia Olivier, professor, Department of Pathobiology and Population Medicine, and associate dean for administration, College of Veterinary Medicine

—Andy Perkins, professor and interim head, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Bagley College of Engineering

“The SEC ALDP is a remarkable program which provides an opportunity for aspiring administrators who are seeking to attend workshops to learn more about senior leadership roles in the academy,” said MSU Executive Vice Provost Peter Ryan. “Each SEC institution sends four fellows nominated by the academic deans to participate in the program, with the respective provost making the final selection. It is a distinct honor to participate in this year-long program, and we are very proud of the four fellows that represent Mississippi State in this cohort.”

The recipient of the 2021 MSU College of Education Faculty Research Award, Anthony provides administrative leadership for the Department of Teacher Education and Leadership, supporting approximately 30 faculty, nine staff and more than 800 undergraduate and graduate students across multiple academic programs. He has a long history of miliary service, including three years with the U.S. Army Reserve and 34 years with the Mississippi Army National Guard. Currently colonel of the MSARNG’s 154th Regimental Regional Training Institute, Anthony is a graduate of the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College and the U.S. Naval War College and has received numerous awards for his service.

In addition to leading the Department of Animal and Dairy Sciences, Bratcher teaches its senior capstone course. Her research interests focus on stressors impacting dairy calves, food safety challenges and consumer preferences for meat products. She is the recipient of teaching and research awards at the regional and national levels and has served for more than eight years in varying leadership roles for the American Society of Animal Science. Prior to joining MSU, she served as associate dean for research for the Davis College of Agriculture and Natural Resources at Texas Tech University.

As a CVM associate dean for administration, Olivier is dedicated to faculty and staff success, promoting shared governance and leading initiatives for hiring, faculty teaching and mentorship, and alumni engagement. Her teaching focuses on diagnostic and comparative pathology, veterinary student education, pathology residency training and graduate student mentorship. Olivier’s research portfolio includes approximately 75 peer-reviewed publications and three active grants, with a focus on pulmonary pathology, infectious disease, immunohistochemistry and image analysis.

In addition to his interim department leadership role, Perkins serves as chair of MSU’s University Committee on Courses and Curricula and recently finished a three-year stint chairing the Robert Holland Faculty Senate Academic Affairs and University Resources Committee. His previous leadership experience includes five years as associate head of the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, coordinator of the computational biology graduate program and service on the MidSouth Computational Biology and Bioinformatics Society, which included a term as its president. Besides computational biology and bioinformatics, his research focuses on graph theoretical algorithms, machine learning and high-performance computing and has been funded by the National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health, U.S. Department of Agriculture and U.S. Department of Defense.

For more about the SEC Academic Leadership Development Program, visit www.thesecu.com/programs/sec-academic-leadership-development-program.

Mississippi State University is taking care of what matters. Learn more at www.msstate.edu.