He also is committed to making CMU a driving educational force in the state, region and globally, helping enable Michigan citizens to participate in the new economy and international marketplace. To support the achievement of these goals, his administration is building alliances with organizations and corporations, local communities, federal and state agencies, the legislature, alumni and donors, schools, and community colleges.

Rao earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of South Florida and a Ph.D. from the University of Florida. His academic interest from early on was aimed toward identifying the behavior and interaction among phenothiazine drugs in vesicles and cell membranes. He then pursued the study of the application of management theory in complex organizations in higher education.

At the University of Florida, Rao served as an assistant to the president. His primary duties included liaison work with the state agencies in charge of higher education in Florida and playing a leadership role in matters of university governance, university relations, budgeting, and affirmative action.

Later, he moved to the state of Washington, where he worked in the private sector as a higher education planner. He helped develop academic master plans for five new branch campuses of the University of Washington and Washington State University.

A year later he moved to California, where his firm was awarded a contract to develop a long-range academic plan for the state’s community college system. That led to academic master planning with other institutions.

In 1992, Rao joined Mission College, an 11,000-student public college in California’s Silicon Valley, as dean of fine and applied arts. In less than two years, he was offered the presidency. During his four years as president, he is credited with reversing years of budget shortfalls through increased enrollment, developing niche degree programs in engineering and technology-related fields, doubling campus square footage, implementing a system of shared governance, and establishing programs and partnerships with leading high-tech companies that joined Mission’s corporate park, resulting in a multi-million dollar revenue stream.

Rao was appointed chancellor at Montana State University Northern in 1998. During his tenure, the university resolved a major budget deficit and created an open budgeting process, initiated new niche-oriented bachelor’s and master’s degree programs, set and exceeded fund-raising goals to expand scholarships and academic programs, achieved records in grant funding for research, and developed an applied technology center.