Archive | Class of 2014

Sheila Adamus Liotta

Vice President for Academic Affairs, Saint Anselm College

Dr. Sheila Liotta has been the Vice President for Academic Affairs at Saint Anselm College since June of 2022. Previously, she served as the founding dean of the School of Arts & Sciences at Providence College from January of 2009 through June of 2022. Prior to her time as dean, she served as chair of the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry for eight years. She joined the Providence College faculty in 1993.

As VPAA at Saint Anselm College, Dr. Liotta has engaged faculty to make recommendations on strategies for the College to maintain and promote its liberal arts component of its identity to inform academic planning. She has also overseen the launch of the Jean School of Nursing and Health Sciences, the College’s first school, and will oversee the launch of two additional schools, the Robert J. Grappone School of Business and Innovation and the School of Arts and Sciences, in 2027, completing a reorganization of the Academic Affairs division. Other major initiatives include the implementation of a revised core curriculum beginning in Fall 2026 and the expansion of graduate program offerings across the College through the creation of new programs in strategic areas. At Providence College, through the development and support of both new academic programs and the College’s robust core curriculum, a renewed appreciation for the centrality of the liberal arts across the campus was realized during Dr. Liotta’s time as Dean. This helped to facilitate Providence College’s successful application, led by Dr. Liotta, for a chapter of Phi Beta Kappa, the premier arts and sciences honors society, which was installed in April of 2022.

Dr. Liotta obtained her bachelor’s degree in chemistry from Rutgers University and her M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from Cornell University. An organic chemist and a strong proponent of undergraduate research, Dr. Liotta supervised thirty-five student researchers in her Providence College laboratory. More recently, she primarily taught a course for non-science majors on contemporary issues in chemistry.

Bridget Keegan

Dean of Arts and Sciences, Creighton University

Bridget Keegan was appointed Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Creighton University in 2015, after serving two years as Interim Dean. Now in her twenty-third year at Creighton, she has held a variety of positions, including chairing the English department as well as the department of Modern Languages, serving a term as Associate Dean, and directing the university’s office of scholarships and fellowships. Dr. Keegan is deeply committed to the transformative power of a liberal arts education and led the team that brought a chapter of Phi Beta Kappa to Creighton’s campus in 2012. More recently she was instrumental in the design and launch of Creighton’s Kingfisher Institute for the Liberal Arts and Professions, which will support innovative, interdisciplinary research and curriculum. As a faculty member and now as dean, she is dedicated to creating a strong, institution-wide commitment for high-impact practices, most notably undergraduate research. She is equally passionate about student advising and mentoring and has recently begun a four-year comprehensive advising program for students that draws its foundation on the principles of discernment and service expressed by the founder of the Society of Jesus, St. Ignatius of Loyola.

Dr. Keegan received her A.B. in Literature from Harvard University and her Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from the State University of New York at Buffalo. Dr. Keegan’s areas of scholarly and teaching interests include eighteenth-century British literature, environmental literature and Catholic writers. She has written and edited numerous books and published over 40 essays, many devoted to the work of laboring-class authors. She serves as a grant reviewer for the NEH and the National Humanities Center as well as a reviewer for numerous journals and university presses.

Michelle Mattson

Provost, Carleton College

Michelle Mattson is presently the Provost at Carleton College. Prior to joining Carleton, she served as Provost at Wittenberg University in Springfield, Ohio. Before that, she had filled a variety of administrative appointments at Rhodes College in Memphis, Tennessee. She received her doctorate in German Studies and Humanities from Stanford University. After that she held faculty positions at Princeton, Columbia University, Iowa State, and Rhodes College. Dr. Mattson gradually increased her administrative responsibilities beginning at Iowa State and continuing at Rhodes College before moving finally into Academic Affairs.

As a scholar, Dr. Mattson’s research has covered such diverse topics as contemporary German drama, political representation in German television, questions of immigration and diversity in Germany today, issues of political subjectivity, and post-war women’s literature. In the summer of 2022, she stepped into her current role as Provost at Carleton College in Northfield, MN.

Pamela MacRae

Associate Provost and Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, University of Maine at Augusta

Pamela S.D. MacRae was appointed Associate Provost in July 2024, following her previous appointments as Assistant Provost in January 2022 and Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences in July 2021 at the University of Maine at Augusta. In addition to her academic dean role, she oversees UMA’s Early College Program, Prison Education Partnership, Senior College Office, and leads the Transforming Lives objectives of the strategic plan. Prior to UMA, she served for one year as the Distance Education Dean of Environmental Conservation and Research at Unity College, Maine (now Unity Environmental University). Previously she served as the Dean of the School of Biodiversity Conservation for four years, and was the Director of the Honors Program for 5 years having joined the faculty at Unity College in 2013. She earned a Ph.D. in Oceanography and Coastal Sciences from Louisiana State University, a M.S. in Zoology from the University of Toronto and B.S. in Biology from Saint Mary’s University in Nova Scotia. She conducted her post-doctoral scholar research at Florida State University on the long-term patterns of fish population density in Florida springs, ponds and tidal marshes and she has published in scientific journals including Ecology, Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences, Environmental Biology of Fishes, Journal of Fish Biology and Copeia among others.

Pamela is a field-based fish community ecologist, and her research has focused on exploring the links between fish community structure and environmental variables in marine, freshwater and estuarine habitats. She has over a decade of teaching field-based ecology, fisheries and marine science classes. She has a record of including undergraduate students in her research and was awarded the Undergraduate Research Mentor Award just one year after beginning her faculty position at Unity College. Prior to joining the faculty at Unity College, she served as an Assistant Professor Biology and Coordinator of the Environmental Science Technology Program at Tallahassee Community College, Florida. Additionally, she has worked in the private industry serving as a Senior Environmental Scientist with the Engineering firm Post, Buckley, Schuh and Jernigan and as a Fisheries Biologist with the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources.

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