Katie Conboy

Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs, Stonehill College

Katie Conboy has served as chief academic officer at Stonehill College for the last decade.  She graduated from the University of Kansas in 1981 with a Bachelor of Arts (honors) in English and completed her Ph.D. in English at the University of Notre Dame in 1986, specializing in history of the novel and feminist theory.  In 1987, she joined the faculty of the English Department at Stonehill, and she attained the rank of Professor in 1998.  As a faculty member, she published numerous articles and co-edited Writing on the Body: Female Embodiment and Feminist Theory (Columbia UP, 1997).  She chaired the English Department briefly before accepting a full-time administrative role in January 2000, and she currently serves as Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs.  In this role, she has been responsible for a complete revision of the General Education curriculum, the implementation of curricular innovations such as learning communities and interdisciplinary programs, the expansion of Stonehill’s international program participation, the extension of undergraduate research opportunities, and the development of a robust career services office.  In addition, she has overseen extraordinary growth of the faculty, improved faculty development opportunities, and enhanced grant activity in support of the curriculum and the faculty.

M. David Rudd

Dean of Social and Behavioral Science, University of Utah

M. David Rudd is Dean of the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Utah and scientific director for the National Center for Veterans Studies at the U. His undergraduate degree is from Princeton University. He completed his doctoral training at the University of Texas-Austin and completed a post-doctoral fellowship in cognitive therapy at the Beck Institute in Philadelphia under the direction of Aaron T. Beck. He is a Diplomate of the American Board of Professional Psychology and a Fellow of three professional societies, including the American Psychological Association (Division 12 and Division 29), the International Association of Suicide Research, and the Academy of Cognitive Therapy (a founding fellow). He was recently elected a Distinguished Practitioner and Scholar of the National Academies of Practice in Psychology. In addition to his clinical work, Dr. Rudd is an active researcher with over 170 publications. He is currently conducting a $1.97 million clinical trial for suicidal soldiers at Fort Carson, Colorado. He has authored several books, including Treating Suicidal Behavior (2001, Guilford, 2^nd printing in 2004) and Suicide Science: Expanding the Boundaries (2001, Kluwer Academic Publishers), The Assessment and Management of Suicidality: A Pocket Guide (Professional Resource Press, 2006) and the recently released The Interpersonal Theory of Suicide (with Joiner, VanOrden, & Witte) from the American Psychological Association Press. His research has been recognized with awards both national and international.  He has served as a consultant to many organizations nationally and internationally, including the United States Air Force, the U.S. Army, the Department of Defense and the Beijing Suicide Prevention and Research Center. Dr. Rudd serves on a number of editorial boards, is past Chair of the Texas State Board of Examiners of Psychologists, past President of the Texas Psychological Association, past President of Division 12 Section VII of the American Psychological Association, past Past-President of the American Association of Suicidology, a previous members of the APA Council of Representatives, and currently serves as vice-president of the PDV Foundation. Dr. Rudd has testified four times before the U.S. Congress, both House and Senate, on issues related to veterans and suicide.

Governance and Board Development

Annual Meeting Program

Member Benefits

Strategic Thinking

Other Program Planning

ACAD’s 67th Year

Officers

Board classes “graduate” in December of their class year. New Board Members are elected at the ACAD Annual Meeting the following January.

Class of 2010

Class of 2011

Class of 2012

More information about AAC&U can be found at www.aacu.org or by contacting their membership director, Dennis Renner, at renner@aacu.org.

ACAD is committed to the ideals of a liberal education and supports academic leaders in their work.

ACAD supports academic administrators as they strive to promote and support the ideals of a liberal education.

ACAD is a membership driven organization that provides academic leaders with the resources they need to excel in their field

ACAD History

ACAD was established in 1945 as an independent, national, nonprofit organization for academic deans from institutions belonging to the Association of American Colleges (now AAC&U). That restriction was removed in 1968, and membership was opened to all academic officers, regardless of membership with AAC&U.

ACAD has chosen to remain a “conference” of deans—small with intimate gatherings—reflecting a continuing dedication to its founding purpose: to create both formal and informal opportunities for deans to meet, network, and offer professional support to their colleagues in their work as academic leaders. Technology has greatly increased ACAD’s effectiveness as a “conference” as members utilize member only benefits—such as the electronic discussion list—to solve problems, exchange views, and solicit advice from colleagues. Our web site further enhances this capacity by providing membership and meeting information, a member directory, a newsletter, and position announcements.

In addition to holding an annual meeting, in recent years ACAD members have published The Resource Handbook for Academic Deans, and collaborated with other higher education organizations on projects of mutual interest. ACAD events are geared toward representing its membership and offer members and others professional development unique to academic administration.

Bruce Romanish

Vice Chancellor of Academic Affairs, Washington State University Vancouver

Bruce Romanish is currently Vice Chancellor of Academic Affairs at Washington State University Vancouver, a post he has held for the past nine years. In this role he leads the campus’s academic initiatives, directs faculty affairs, and oversees the diversity agenda. His office is responsible for Research and Graduate Education, General Education, and Honors. He served in previous faculty and administrative roles at Rutgers University and St. Cloud State University. He earned an EdD. From Penn State University in 1980.

Sara Varhus

Vice President for Academic Affairs, Nazareth College

Sara Varhus has been Vice President for Academic Affairs at Nazareth College since January, 2007. Prior to that, she was for ten years Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at SUNY at Oswego, where she also served as Director of the Honors Program in Liberal Studies and Associate Dean of Arts and Sciences. She received her B.A. at Rockford College and her PH.D., at the University of Rochester. She also participated in the HERS Summer Institute for Women in Higher Education Administration at Bryn Mawr College and the Harvard Institute for Educational Management. She has been involved in a number of interdisciplinary curricular projects, one of which was sponsored FIPSE, and one of which was part of the Integrative Learning Project, sponsored by the Carnegie Foundation and AAC&U. She has been editor of the Forum for Honors, the refereed journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council, and she served on the Executive Board of that organization. For the Council for Colleges of Arts and Sciences, she chaired the Committee on Comprehensive Institutions, and twice served as a Facilitator for the New Deans Seminar. She has presented frequently at meetings of NCHC, CCAS, AAC&U, and AAHE, and she has been a consultant to honors programs and interdisciplinary projects. She has written and presented scholarly essays on Restoration and Eighteenth-century literature.

Stephanie Fabritius

Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dean of the College, Centre College

Stephanie Fabritius is a professor of biology, vice president for academic affairs, and dean of the College at Centre College in Danville, Kentucky. Prior to joining Centre College in 2006, she was a professor, associate provost, and director of the Paideia Program at Southwestern University, where she worked for more than 17 years. While at Southwestern University, she held the Lillian Nelson Pratt Chair in the Sciences from 2000 to 2004, and in 1997 received the Exemplary Teaching Award from the Board of Higher Education and Ministry of the United Methodist Church. In 2002-2003, she was an American Council on Education (ACE) Fellow at Bowdoin College.

Fabritius’ research has focused upon mating systems and parental care patterns in grassland nesting songbirds and on sex ratio manipulation in parasitic wasps. Her areas of teaching have included introductory biology, behavioral ecology, ecology, natural history of the vertebrates, evolution, and conducting collaborative research with undergraduate students.

She holds a B.S. in biology from Pepperdine University and a Ph.D. from Purdue University.

Jan Czechowski

Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dean of the Faculty, Washington and Jefferson College

Dr. Jan Czechowski is originally from Chicago (NW side) and earned his BFA and MA in Theatre from the University of Arizona. He earned his Ph.D in Theatre from the University of Michigan. Most recently, he serves as the Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dean of the Faculty at Washington & Jefferson College. He has been with the College since 2005. Prior to this, he served as Dean of Arts and Sciences at The College of St. Catherine in St. Paul MN, beginning in 1999. Additionally, he taught at Grinnell College for 23 years, beginning in 1976. During that time also served as Assistant Dean of the Faculty, Director of Off-Campus Study, Chair of the Humanities Division, Chair of the Theatre Department, Project Director for the Buxbaum Center for the Arts, among other things.

In 1998, he organized and ran a three day symposium under the auspices of the Rosenfield Program in Public Affairs, International Relations, and Human Rights, on Conflict Resolution in Northern Ireland. The panel included a Northern Irish historian as well as members from five of the major political parties in Northern Ireland representing both sides of the conflict as well as the Women’s Coalition.

He has extensive professional design and directing experience in both academic and professional arenas, e.g., Riverside Theatre in Iowa City and as Resident Designer at the Old Creamery Theatre for 10 years, also in Iowa. His most recent creative work occurred in March 2008 when he directed The Idiots Karamazov at Washington and Jefferson.

He has been a member of ACAD since 2000 and on the Board beginning in 2007.