Plater was appointed Professor of English and Dean of the
Indiana University School of Liberal Arts at IUPUI in 1983. He served as Dean of the Faculties at IUPUI from 1987 to 1988, when he also assumed the title and responsibilities of the Executive Vice Chancellor. IUPUI was established in 1969 as the merger of the IU Schools of Medicine, Dentistry, Nursing, and Law with the extension campuses of Purdue University and Indiana University in Indianapolis. Plater served as the chief academic officer for over half of its existence by the time he left the position in 2006, after 19 years. During this period, Plater is credited with articulating a vision for the development of the campus, which enjoyed significant growth in enrollments, student retention, degree programs, externally funded research, and national recognition for innovations in undergraduate education, community engagement, internationalization, and applications of technology to learning. In his history of IUPUI, Ralph Gray wrote in 2003 that “This truly remarkable, visionary, and comprehensive document, the IUPUI Development Plan, 1988-2000, set what may at the time have been seen as impossibly high standards and goals, but its theme and its promises have been followed and, for the most part, achieved.” Plater served under the leadership of Gerald L. Bepko, Chancellor from 1986 until 2003, when Bepko became Interim President of Indiana University and Plater was appointed Acting Chancellor. From 2006 to 2010, Plater was appointed Chancellor's Professor of Public Affairs, Philanthropy, and English and Director of the Workshop on International Community Development, a program sponsored by the IU Center on Philanthropy (now the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy) and the IU School of Public and Environmental Affairs. The Workshop was designed to coordinate IUPUI international activities with those of the greater Indianapolis community and to apply university knowledge, expertise, and experience to the growing internationalization of the region's economic, social, cultural, and educational development. Plater's principal achievements at IUPUI include: creation of a major collaboration with
Ivy Tech Community College under the Passport Program that contributed to the College's establishment as an accredited statewide community college, creation of University College, formation of Integrated Technologies (that combined academic and administrative computing with telecommunications, as the predecessor to the university-wide University Information Technology Services, development of the
IUPUI University Library, and creation of the Office of Professional Development, the Center for Service and Learning, the Office of International Affairs, Center on Philanthropy, Community Learning Network, Solution Center, and Public Health (Fairbanks School of Public Health). In support of the development of IUPUI, Plater was the co-director (with Deborah Freund) of a
Lilly Endowment $8 million grant for “Improved Graduation from Public Universities” (1997–2002) and a $3.2 million grant from the Pew Charitable Trust (with Margaret Miller and Barbara Cambridge) for “Quality Assurance at Urban Public Universities” (1998–2001). Committed to serving adult learners, Plater was a strong advocate of programming to accommodate working and returning students. He was a member of the board of directors of the Council on Adult and Experiential Learning (CAEL), from 1995 to 2009, serving as chair in 2005-2007. Plater's role in developing IUPUI was recognized by Governor of Indiana
Mitch Daniels with the state's highest award, the
Sagamore of the Wabash in 2006, by IUPUI in establishing the annual Plater Institute on the Future of Learning, and by Indiana University awarding him the Thomas Hart Benton Medal in 1988. ==Community engagement==