Kenneth G. Furton
Bio
Dr. Kenneth G. Furton is Provost, Executive Vice President, and COO of FIU with 34 years of higher education experience in administration, education, research and innovation, with a proven track record of balancing fiscal responsibility and regulatory compliance while advancing a culture of student success and research excellence in an urban, multicultural setting that has led to across the board improvements in student outcomes, faculty success, growth of the research enterprise, community impact and rankings.
In the last 6 years as Provost, he has led the development and implementation of two FIU strategic plans (BeyondPossible2020 and NextHorizon 2025) and the implementation of many initiatives lead to increases in many performance metrics including 2nd year retention rate from 84% in 2014 to 90% in 2019 and 4-year FTIC graduation rate from 25% to 43% with goal of 60% by 2025. These improvements helped more FIU from #8 to #2 in the State in performance-based funding rankings. During this time, FIU also moved from meeting none of the preeminent research university metrics to achieving 8 of 12 in 2018 to qualify as an emerging preeminent research university and moving from R2 to R1 Carnegie Research University.
These improvements have increased FIU’s national profile resulting in numerous top 50 public university rankings including #43 in Washington Monthly and #15 in patent production and in in US News and World Report is ranked #10 Top Performer in Social Mobility, #30 Most Innovative National University and #41 Best Online Programs. Top 50 public university program rankings in US News increased from 2 in 2014 to 40 in 2019 including Public Health #50, Environment and Ecology #48, Law #47, Biomedical Engineering #43, Nursing #36 and International Business #2. FIU is also ranked top 3 in the US in 4 Times Higher Ed Impact Rankings in 2020.
Dr. Furton is a leading scholar in forensic chemistry, specializing in scent detection and he continues to be active mentoring research students and publishing. He is the author or co-author of more than 211 peer reviewed publications, 24 patents, 2 books and 658 conference presentations including hundreds of invited talks nationally and internationally. Dr. Furton has testified as an expert witness in dozens of state and federal trials. His research projects have been continuously funded for more than three decades, totaling more than $14 million in external funding. He is a member of Phi Beta Kappa and an elected Fellow of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences and an elected fellow of the American Academy of Inventors.