Chester,
Pa.—Widener University announces the appointment of deans to three of
its eight schools and colleges following nationwide searches.
Dr.
Stephen C. Wilhite, provost and senior vice president for Academic
Affairs at Widener, announced the appointment of Dr. Laura Dzurec as
dean of the School of Nursing, Dr. Shawn Fitzgerald as dean of the
School of Education, Innovation, and Continuing Studies, and Dr. Sharon
Meagher as dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. All three will
assume their new positions at Widener on July 1, 2014.
“We
are very fortunate to appoint three deans with a strong commitment to
and demonstrated record of promoting leadership, global awareness and
civic engagement, all of which are major components of Widener’s
mission,” Wilhite said. “Individually, they are respected leaders in
their fields and within the institutions they currently serve, and we
are proud to welcome them to the Widener community.”
Dzurec
served as dean of the College of Nursing at Kent State University from
2006 to August 2013, and is currently professor of nursing at the
university. Prior to Kent State, she was dean of the School of Nursing
at the University of Connecticut for six years, following appointments
at the University of Maine and the Oregon Health Sciences University.
At Kent State, Dzurec
helped establish a focus on self-care, wellness and mindfulness as a
means of thematically organizing the faculty’s endeavors in teaching,
research and community outreach. She was also significantly involved in
Kent State’s strategic efforts to enhance diversity and promote
globally-oriented programming. A respected leader in the profession, she
serves as an adviser to the Nurse Faculty Leadership Academy of the
Sigma Theta Tau nursing honor society.
As
a faculty member, Dzurec’s area of focus is on psychiatric and mental
health nursing, family nursing and health policy, with a recent research
focus on workplace bullying.
Dzurec
earned her bachelor’s degree in nursing from the University of
Connecticut, a master’s in nursing from The Ohio State University, and
her doctorate Ph.D. in nursing from Case Western Reserve University.
Fitzgerald
has directed the School of Foundations, Leadership and Administration
at Kent State University since 2009, providing leadership to 10 programs
including, among others, educational administration, higher education
administration, evaluation and measurement, hospitality management, and
recreation, parks, and tourism management. He also provided leadership
for the college’s Professional Development and Outreach Office, the
Office of Distance Learning and has been extensively involved in the
recruitment of international students.
As
a leader in the development of online and hybrid course offerings at
Kent State, Fitzgerald launched a hybrid, cohort degree program for the
evaluation and measurement master’s program that resulted in a 400
percent increase in enrollment in two years and the program’s
recognition as an exemplary innovative program by the American
Association of Colleges for Teacher Education.
Prior
to becoming director of the school at Kent State, Dr. Fitzgerald served
for 10 years there as director of the Measurement and Evaluation
Program. He holds a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Lebanon Valley
College, a master’s in educational psychology from the University of
Toledo, and a doctorate in Applied Educational Research, Evaluation,
Measurement and Statistics from the University of Toledo.
Meagher
comes to Widener from the University of Scranton, where she has served
since 2009 as founding chairperson of the Department of Latin American
Studies and Women’s Studies. She is also a leader in the Scranton
community, serving as the founding president of the Mulberry Central
Neighborhood Development Corporation, a nonprofit organization dedicated
to coordinating services and development activities in the city’s hill
section.
An
advocate for the public relevance of philosophy, she co-founded the
Public Philosophy Network to facilitate collaboration among philosophers
engaged in public work. She has also edited two books, and is nearing
completion of a book titled “Philosophical Streetwalking: Grounding
Philosophy in Public Life.”
In
her leadership roles at Scranton, Meagher helped develop short-term
global study programs, co-facilitated Scranton’s faculty sustainability
workshop which assists faculty in integrating sustainability issues
across the curriculum, and developed an interdisciplinary capstone
seminar titled “Working for Justice” to help students think critically
about economic sectors and how they might become social change leaders.
Meagher
earned a bachelor’s degree in philosophy and sociology from Boston
College and a doctorate in philosophy from the State University of New
York at Stony Brook.
No comments:
Post a Comment