College names dean from Rowan University as new provost and vice president for academic affairs

SUNY New Paltz is pleased to announce the appointment of Dr. Lorin Basden Arnold as the College’s new provost and vice president for academic affairs. She will begin her new duties on July 1.

Arnold is currently dean of the College of Communication and Creative Arts at Rowan University in Glassboro, N.J.  Prior to becoming dean of the College of Communication in 2010, which became the College of Communication and Creative Arts in 2012, she served as interim dean of the College for 18 months. She has also served as chair of the communication studies department at Rowan and earned the rank of full professor there in 2007.

In addition to serving as provost at New Paltz, Arnold will hold tenure and professor rank in the Department of Communication. Her specialty is interpersonal and family communication.

“Dr. Arnold joins us with a tremendous backing of community support, and certainly my great enthusiasm about all that she brings to my senior management and leadership team,” said President Donald Christian. “Her wisdom, experience, and communication and problem-solving abilities position her extremely well to lead and advocate for our academic enterprise.”

The provost and vice president for academic affairs is the College’s chief academic officer with responsibility for the planning, development, growth and quality of all academic programs and related support functions. This includes the articulation of an academic vision, leadership in academic strategic planning that supports the institutional strategic plan, the development and administration of academic budgets and the advancement of excellence in teaching, scholarship and service. The provost is also the chief personnel officer for academic employees and is responsible for hiring and evaluating faculty and also ensuring, together with the faculty, that the New Paltz curriculum is relevant, timely and adequately supported.

Arnold will serve as a key member of internal and external groups, including the President’s executive management team, labor-management committees, the College Council and the system-wide chief academic officer’s group. She will join President Christian and other senior administrators and faculty in institutional policy development. In addition, Arnold will play a significant role in the engagement around diversity and inclusion in the academic realm as well as building bridges across various constituencies and interests on the campus.

As provost, Arnold will oversee five instructional divisions, the Graduate School, the Sojourner Truth Library, Academic Advising, the Center for International Programs, Sponsored Programs, Extended Learning, the Honors Program, the Center for Teaching and Learning, the Tutoring Center, the Scholar’s Mentorship Program, the Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art, the SUNY-Turkish Dual Diploma Program, and the Research, Scholarship and Creative Activities Program.

“SUNY New Paltz is so clearly a college where there is a true focus on students and their success, and everyone that I met was clear about that priority,” said Arnold. “I was impressed with the dedication and enthusiasm of the faculty, the staff and the students. I’m looking forward to joining the SUNY New Paltz community and moving forward together.”

As dean of the College of Communication and Creative Arts, Arnold provides leadership for six academic departments and more than 240 faculty and staff, serving more than 1,700 students enrolled in both undergraduate and graduate degree programs at an institution of more than 16,000 students. She oversees a budget of more than $11 million. With programs focused on scholarly research and critical analysis, creative arts, pragmatic career preparation, and various combinations thereof, she has worked diligently to develop opportunities for student access through a variety of mechanisms. These include: curricular changes and the addition of new programs, establishing academic partnerships with other universities and community colleges and launching evening and weekend courses, and online education. She also established the Rowan Writing Center.

Arnold’s research has examined mothers’ understandings of gender socialization, mothering and eating disorders, and online parenting communities. Most recently, she served as co-editor of the anthology “Taking the Village Online: Mothers, Motherhood, and Social Media,” in press now. She is the primary author and acquisition editor of “Family Communication: Theory and Research,” a textbook for undergraduate family communication courses.

A three-time graduate of Purdue University, she earned her doctorate in interpersonal communication in 1996, her master’s degree in public affairs/issue management in 1991 and her bachelor’s degree in communication/public relations in 1988.

She began working at Rowan in 1998 and formerly taught at Purdue University, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis and the University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown.

Arnold fills a vacancy in the provost position, which has had interim leadership from Dr. Stella Deen, associate professor of English, since Aug. 1, 2015.

Arnold will be joined in New Paltz by her husband, Derek Arnold, an instructor in communication at Villanova University. The Arnolds have six children.