John Falconer

Senior Advisor to the Chancellor

Phone: (308) 865-8715   |    Email: falconerj@unk.edu

John Falconer

Biography

John Falconer was named senior advisor to the chancellor for executive affairs in summer 2019.

In this position, Falconer provides counsel and assistance to the chancellor, serves on the administrative Cabinet, leads compliance and special projects and oversees all strategic, policy, operational, management and comprehensive issues on the chancellor’s institutional agenda. Falconer supervises the Office of Equity and Compliance, which interprets and ensures compliance with board and campus governance and policies, works with faculty bargaining agreements, processes and appeals and coordinates communication with the chancellor among the vice chancellors, deans and heads of other units.

A Kearney native, Falconer joined UNK in 1999 as director of sponsored programs and was named director of the UNK Honors Program in 2013. In both positions he generated and increased faculty and student interest in undergraduate student research, establishing UNK as a model for successfully engaging students in experiential learning and creative activity alongside and under the mentorship of faculty.

Falconer has published scholarly articles and chapters on undergraduate research, access to education, criminal justice and honors education and taught courses on American government, introduction to research and health policy.

He earned bachelor’s degrees in political science and sociology from UNK and a master’s degree in foreign affairs from the University of Virginia. He holds a Ph.D. in higher education administration, curriculum and instruction from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

Falconer previously worked in Washington, D.C., as a program manager at the U.S.-Ukraine Foundation and director of development at American Forests.