Phillip Rumrill was named a Red Cedar Distinguished Professor in November 2025. The title recognizes faculty who demonstrate exemplary scholarly achievement, teaching excellence and a clear alignment with MSU’s strategic priorities.
Rumrill, who joined the MSU College of Education in Fall 2025, is an internationally recognized leader in rehabilitation counseling.
Rumrill's career background includes faculty roles at higher education institutions, most recently at the University of Kentucky. From 1998-2018, Rumrill also directed the Multiple Sclerosis Employment Service, which provides vocational services and supports to more than 20,000 people with multiple sclerosis across the United States.
As Rumrill considered a new phase of his career, opportunity came knocking at MSU.
“If you do work in rehabilitation counseling, disability studies and counseling in general, MSU is one of the main centers of research,” Rumrill said. “It’s the kind of place everyone wants to be at.”
He also wanted a career shift where he could work with undergraduate and graduate students in addition to his research and grant work. At the College of Education, he will teach courses in the undergraduate special education program, the Rehabilitation Counseling M.A. program, the new Community Mental Health Counseling M.A. program and the recently redesigned Counseling and Counselor Supervision Ph.D. program.
He will continue his vast research portfolio, which includes examinations into aging and disability, assistive technology and reasonable accommodations, chronic illnesses and more. He has held management roles on 49 federal, state and private foundation grants exceeding $57 million total. This, and complementary work, has led to Rumrill authoring or co-authoring nearly 340 professional journal articles, 16 books and dozens of book chapters, magazine articles and more. He has delivered nearly 800 addresses to consumer, professional, academic and policymaking audiences and has guest edited 35 special issues of professional and academic journals.
In 2024, he became co-editor of the Journal of Rehabilitation, a role he will continue while at MSU. The journal is the official journal of the National Rehabilitation Association.
“We are thrilled to welcome Dr. Rumrill to the MSU College of Education,” said Dean Jerlando F. L. Jackson. “He brings a wealth of experience and dedication to the rehabilitation counseling field, which will enhance our class offerings and opportunities for students and open even more pathways for collaborations with the greater community.”
Rumrill, who has been a nationally Certified Rehabilitation Counselor since 1994, was named the Rehabilitation Researcher of the Year in 2005 by the National Council on Rehabilitation Education. Other accolades include the James F. Garrett Award for a Distinguished Career in Rehabilitation Research (2016, American Rehabilitation Counseling Association) and the Distinguished Career in Rehabilitation Award in 2019 from the National Council on Rehabilitation.
Rumrill has earned degrees from Keene State College (New Hampshire) and his doctorate in Rehabilitation from the University of Arkansas.