Diana Morris Watkins, 15th President of Northern Oklahoma College

Diana Morris Watkins became the 15th President of Northern Oklahoma College on June 1, 2024. She began her career in education teaching high school English in Ardmore, Oklahoma. Her move to post-secondary education came in 2000 when she joined the Oklahoma State University Honors Program, now Honors College, as an academic counselor before spending four years as an “early childhood educator,” taking on the role of full-time mom until her daughter began pre-K. Watkins’s tenure at NOC began as an Adjunct Instructor in the Language Arts Department on the Stillwater campus in 2005. In 2007 she was named the Distinguished Adjunct Faculty Member for NOC Stillwater. After joining the Language Arts Department full-time in 2007, she was named the Distinguished Faculty Member for NOC Stillwater in 2009. In 2019 she made the move to administration, taking on the role of Vice President for the Stillwater campus, which houses the NOC/OSU Gateway Program. In 2022 she was named Vice President for Academic Affairs for Northern. Extremely passionate about student success, Watkins served on the task force that developed NOC’s First-Generation Mentor Program, a program designed to assist students who are the first in their families to attend college. She has presented at numerous conferences, including the National Association of Developmental Education Conference and the National Collegiate Honors Council Conference. Watkins was recently appointed by Chancellor Allison Garrett to the State Regents’ Campus Safety & Security Task Force.

A proud graduate of Perry High School, she went on to earn an Honors Program Bachelor’s Degree in Secondary English Education from Oklahoma State University where she also earned her Master’s Degree in Teaching Learning and Leadership and is currently a doctoral student in Higher Education and Student Affairs.

Watkins enjoys practicing yoga, running, reading, and attending sporting events, concerts, and theatre performances. Her daughter, Emma, an NOC alumni and graduate of Mount Holyoke College, works as a visitor services associate and copy editor at the Oklahoma Hall of Fame and is a communications fellow for the Keats Shelley Association of America.