Professor Jane Close Conoley will return as Dean of UC Santa Barbara’s Gevirtz School beginning August 19 after an eight-month period serving as the Acting Chancellor at UC Riverside. Meanwhile, Acting Dean Gale Morrison, who has ably led the Gevirtz School while Dean Conoley held the position at Riverside, will return to retirement. Conoley comes back to a Gevirtz School that was recently named the 40th best graduate school of education in the country, according to U.S. News & World Reports; the graduate school ranks number 29 among public universities. (The new Chancellor at UC Riverside will be Kim Wilcox, recently a provost at Michigan State University.)
“Jane Conoley has been a superb dean, and her outstanding service as interim Chancellor at Riverside has deepened her leadership skills and expertise,” says UC President Mark Yudof. “I join the Chancellor, faculty, staff and students at Santa Barbara in wishing her the best as she resumes her duties at UCSB.”
Conoley, a professor in the Department of Counseling, Clinical and School Psychology at the Gevirtz Graduate School of Education, became dean in January 2006 after serving for 10 years as dean of the College of Education and Human Development at Texas A&M University, where she was a professor of educational psychology.
“I have had a great learning experience as interim chancellor at UCR, but am pleased that we were able to accomplish a successful search for a permanent chancellor in just seven months,” Conoley says. “I look forward to resuming my UCSB work together with the faculty, students, and staff at the Gevirtz School.”
The author or editor of 21 books, and over one hundred articles and book chapters, Conoley has been honored with fellow status from both the American Psychological Association and the Association of Psychological Science.
“I deeply appreciate Dean Conoley’s service to our UC community and the exceptional leadership she provided as Interim Chancellor at UC Riverside during their critical time of need,” says Chancellor Henry T. Yang. “As she returns to UC Santa Barbara, she brings with her valuable insights and perspective gained from her time at our sister campus. We are delighted to welcome her ‘home,’ and we look forward to her continued exemplary leadership of our Gevirtz Graduate School of Education. I would also like to take this opportunity to sincerely thank Professor Gale Morrison for her contributions as Acting Dean of GGSE, which add yet further luster to her long and distinguished record of leadership and service to our campus.”
Dr. Gale Morrison came out of retirement that she began in June of 2012 to serve as Acting Dean of the Gevirtz School, a position she had held previously between the deanships of Jules Zimmer and Jane Close Conoley. Dr. Morrison had also served as the dean of UCSB’s Graduate Division for more than seven years. She is a professor emeritus in the Department of Counseling, Clinical, and School Psychology of the Gevirtz School. In addition to her deanships, Morrison has served as chair of the UCSB Academic Senate Graduate Council and the UC NSF AGEP (Alliance for Graduate Education and the Professoriate) Steering Committee, as co-chair of the UCSB Committee on Excellence in Graduate Education in preparation for WASC re-accreditation, and as a member of the UC Student Health Committee, the UC Academic Senate Coordinating Committee on Graduate Affairs, and the Council of Graduate Schools Government Relations Advisory Committee.
“I am pleased that Jane Conoley will be returning to the Gevirtz School and will bring a wealth of new experiences and ideas to help shape the exciting future that is ahead for our School,” says outgoing Acting Dean Gale Morrison. “It has been an honor to become reacquainted with the Gevirtz School and to once again come to appreciate all of the wonderful work being done by faculty, staff and students.”