Dodd Named Assistant Dean

Ann Dodd joined the College of Agricultural Sciences last fall as assistant dean for strategic initiatives. In this position, Dodd will cooperate with faculty and external stakeholders to identify new audiences and program opportunities; lead strategic planning efforts to define the college’s areas of excellence; facilitate implementation of initiatives that cut across the college’s teaching, research, and extension missions; create programs to help the college’s leadership team, faculty, staff, and students develop team-building, teamwork, and leadership skills; evaluate and report the impact of college programs and enhance their visibility; and represent the college to university and external groups.

“Ann will contribute in many ways to the college, with a mandate to seek means by which we can work more effectively across functions and disciplines,” says Bruce McPheron, associate dean for research and graduate education. “ Her extensive experience in strategic planning and quality initiatives will help us to better focus our energies and resources toward those areas where we have particular strengths.”

Prior to joining the college, Dodd was a senior consultant in the university’s Office of Planning and Institutional Assessment, where she helped design and facilitate more than 50 strategic planning initiatives for Penn State colleges, departments, and administrative units. She wrote the Innovation Insights publication series and established the Penn State Quality Advocates Network to share best practices in planning, assessment, improvement, and change management. She also initiated a Fast Track Improvement model that resulted in the enhancement of several university functions. In addition, she taught and conducted research on academic leadership, quality management, and conflict communication.

Dodd joined Penn State in 1999 after five years at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she last served as executive assistant to the vice chancellor and director of institutional effectiveness. From 1990 to 1994, she held multiple posts in quality improvement in the Division of Information Technology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Previously, she worked in various capacities for EXPCT in Madison, Wisconsin, PACE Enterprises in Alexandria, Virginia, and Iowa State University in Ames, Iowa. Dodd earned a bachelor’s degree in family services and a master’s degree in higher education, both from Iowa State University, and a doctorate in communication arts and sciences from Penn State.

—Chuck Gill