(Eds Note: Faculty, staff and students are invited to join President Gee and Provost McConnell at a reception honoring Dr. Elizabeth Dooley for her many contributions to the University during 24 years of service. The event will be held July 28 from 4:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. in the Alma Mater Room of the Erickson Alumni Center. A short program, including remarks, will take place at 5 p.m. Dooley has been named the vice provost for teaching and learning at the University of Central Florida.)

When Dr. Elizabeth Dooley left West Virginia University in 1989, she did not anticipate returning. Newly hired as an assistant professor of special education at Northeastern Illinois University, Dooley looked forward to building her career in Chicago and to educating the next generation of special education teachers in the diverse, multicultural environment of a big city.

But when she got the call to return to WVU, she found she couldn’t resist.

Dooley was offered the the opportunity of recruiting more diverse students into special education/teacher education at WVU.”My passion was inclusivity in teacher education, so that school-age students could have a wide range of shared experiences from teachers of diverse backgrounds,” she said. “The recruitment program was so successful that it created a pathway to other leadership opportunities.”

Since Dooley came back to WVU as an assistant professor in special education, not only did she earn tenure and become fully promoted, she also advanced into numerous leadership positions. She helped found the Health Sciences and Technology Academy, served as interim director of the Center for Black Culture and Research and chaired the Department of Curriculum and Instruction/Literacy Studies in the College of Education and Human Services for 10 years. Beginning in 2009, she expanded and revitalized Undergraduate Academic Affairs as the associate provost in that area, worked with a team to secure a Carnegie Classification for Community Engagement for WVU, and then in 2013 founded and served as the dean of University College.

Although the list of accomplishments and administrative responsibilities is exhaustive, Dooley is far from done with her career. In September, she will take on a new position as the vice provost for teaching and learning and the dean of the newly created College of Undergraduate Studies at the University of Central Florida in Orlando.

The new roles at UCF are natural next steps for someone who has embraced leadership, teaching and service as the cornerstones of post-secondary education.

“You have to understand – I’m a teacher,” Dooley said. “As a child I observed racial inequities and fought against them. Then when you study special education, you talk about equity. I didn’t shift from one interest to another. Both come from a broad understanding of what it means to work in a spirit of service.”

Ann Chester, who cofounded HSTA with Dooley in 1995 and has directed the program ever since, echoes this characterization of Dooley as an instinctive leader in her administrative roles.

“As HSTA’s first and long-time Summer Institute Director, she was creative, student-centered, collaborative and willing to take bold steps to improve access to higher education for all students,” Chester said. “HSTA is successful today because of Dr. Dooley’s commitment to creating and guiding us over the years. As a result, West Virginia resident college retention rates are improved.”

Since she joined the university’s central administration, she has focused on ensuring the academic success undergraduate students.

It was with this goal that Dooley approached the role of associate provost for undergraduate academic affairs, which she took on in 2009. She transformed an office that had been very process- and paperwork-focused into a more centralized and team-based unit. Even as she did so, however, Dooley saw an even greater need for “guidance, communication and an understanding of the different incomes and populations across the spectrum in the state.”

Her sense that all students “need to be actively engaged and that the engagement needs to depend on what the student brings to the table” led Dooley to found the University College at WVU, with the full support of both the administration and the Board of Governors. University College brings together a variety of student services, ranging from academic advising and success initiatives to the first-year experience and transitional programs.

Dooley credits colleagues across the university with helping make both the revitalized Office of Undergraduate Academic Affairs and University College a reality. “This university has very few naysayers,” she said. “You can feel the energy in the room when you talk about challenges and opportunities.”

Provost Joyce McConnell describes Dooley herself as one of these positive people. “The university has benefited tremendously over the years from her administrative skills and her intellectual vision,” McConnell said. “The amount she has accomplished at WVU is just astounding, and she has done it all with grace, never seeming weighed down by her many responsibilities. Her energy is a real gift—to those of us who work with her and especially to our students.”

As she prepares to leave WVU, Dooley has a clear sense of what she wants for all students – both those she has worked with here and those she will be working with at UCF. “I want them to own their education,” she said, “and to see the end of their academic journey—to know what it is they want. I want them to be their own conductors on that journey.”

-WVU-

ac/07/24/15

CONTACT: Ann Claycomb; Office of the Provost
304.293.9919; Ann.Claycomb@mail.wvu.edu

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