Dr. Allison Pease was recently chosen as the new Provost and Vice President of Academic Affairs at the college.
This role is one of many Pease has occupied during her career at the college, including professor in the English department, Associate Provost for Institutional Effectiveness, Associate to the Provost for Faculty, Interim Dean of Undergraduate Studies, Chair of English, and Director of Gender Studies.
While performing the various duties associated with these titles, Pease led the creation of the Bachelor’s of Arts degree programs for English and Gender Studies, established major advisement in students’ sophomore year, helped create the ACE program at the college, and established the college’s Teaching and Learning Center.
This vast variety of experience has helped Pease as she stepped into the role of Interim Provost and now full-time Provost of the college.
Pease said working in both professor and administrative roles has helped her “understand the college from different viewpoints” and has allowed her to “empathize with everyone doing their jobs in those positions.”
While the Provost position may seem to be a natural trajectory in her career, it was actually not Pease’s plan. She explained that she was doing a different job at the college when she was asked to step in as Interim. It was when serving as Interim Provost that Pease realized her interest in the role.
“Once I was doing it, I recognized what I love about [being Provost] is the capacity to influence the things I think really matter: the student experience, quality of faculty, kind of academic programs, and internships,” Pease said.
When Pease entered the role of Provost, the college was in an 11 million dollar deficit. Pease and the college have since completely closed this deficit and tightened the schedule by 2.7 million dollars.
Since then, Pease has shifted her focus to completing three main goals in her first year as Provost. The first goal is to focus on the undergraduate foundational courses.
“The first two years are super important for students,” she said. “We need to give them the support to do well in upper level courses.”
Pease’s second goal is to integrate more career possibilities and internship experiences for students. She aims to increase the number of connections with employers by 500 and increase the amount of internship opportunities for students as well.
Lastly, Pease is determined to attract more outside investment for the two main aspects the college excels in: law school and research.
“We’re really good at getting students into law school,” she said. “I believe we could be the best, but we need more funding and more programming.”
Pease also explained that the high costs for LSAT preparation often deters students from even applying to law school, so funding to help cover preparation fees for students would be incredibly beneficial. Currently, students can get fee waivers through the Law School Admission Council, but many students either aren’t aware of this option or are ineligible due to their annual household income.
Furthermore, Pease hopes to continue helping STEM students get accepted into the graduate schools of their choices and to get PRISM, the Program for Research Initiatives in Science and Math, endowed by a funder. The program is currently funded by the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Department of Education, and the New York State Education Department.
Accomplishing these three goals would help transform the experience of undergraduates across the college. This academic year, Pease concluded, is surely set to be an exciting one.
