MSU dean announces retirement

A national search for a replacement begins immediately. Banks’ could step down as early as July 31, but he has said he will remain in the position until his successor is in place.

Banks spent the past 11 years as a dean and previously served for 26 years as head of the physical sciences, and physics and astronomy departments.

In his 40 years at MSU, he was responsible for directly bringing $2.5 million in outside grants to the university.

Following his retirement, he will continue to work part-time for two or three years with the university’s Missouri Virtual School, a grade-school distance education program he initiated eight years ago.

Banks also was instrumental in MSU’s creation of a department of computer science in 1984 and a School of Agricultural Sciences in 1999.

“Faculty at this university, particularly in the College of Natural and Applied Sciences, are very dedicated to their students, great researchers, and it has been a joy to work with them,” Banks said in a news release.