Mary Loeffelholz, dean of the School of Continuing Education and Summer Sessions (SCE) who led the school’s expansion after the pandemic and the planning of Cornell’s first part-time, fully online bachelor’s degree program, will step down from her role as dean, effective Jan. 1, 2027.

Steve Jackson, vice provost for academic innovation and professor of information science in the Cornell Ann S. Bowers College of Computing and Information Science, has agreed to serve as interim dean of SCE.

“Mary assumed leadership of the School of Continuing Education at a critical time and provided strong guidance as we sought to expand access to higher education, particularly for nontraditional students,” Provost Kavita Bala said. “Post-pandemic, the summer school was revitalized under Mary’s leadership. I am grateful to Mary for her steady hand in leading the school, and to Steve for taking the reins during this transitional period.”

This year, SCE nearly doubled the Precollege Studies Residential Program’s course offerings – to 19 classes, from 10 when it was reinstated in 2025.

“That’s been important, getting high school students back to campus,” Loeffelholz said. “It’s important for a lot of the disciplines at Cornell that really depend on experience-based teaching – like veterinary medicine, fashion design, even entrepreneurship in the food and beverage industry.

“One of the missions of the precollege program is to bring students from underserved communities, who might be first-generation students, getting them to campus for a long-term experience,” she said. “So we were able to return to some old relationships there and forge some new ones.”

The new online degree program – designed for working professionals with some college experience but no bachelor’s degree – is another highlight of her tenure, she said. She said the initial expectation is 25 new students beginning the program in fall 2027, with another 25 expected to start in the spring of 2028.

“It’s customary, in adult degree programs, to have multiple intake points over the course of the year,” she said. “We hope to learn a lot from these first two groups of students, and we also hope to be able to bring them to campus so they can meet each other and experience the campus.”

In his interim role, Jackson will work to support deeper collaborations between teaching-related activities across SCE, eCornell and the Center for Teaching Innovation.

“I’m excited to take on this important role and build on the good work of Dean Loeffelholz and team going forward,” Jackson said. “Cornell’s longstanding commitment to continuing education is an essential source of strength and value as we navigate the shifting landscape of higher education.”

Loeffelholz has been dean of SCE since March 1, 2023. She formerly served as dean of the College of Professional Studies and professor of English at Northeastern University.

A distinguished scholar of 19th- and early 20th‑century American poetry, she is the author or editor of numerous books, including “The Value of Emily Dickinson” (2016) and “From School to Salon: Reading Nineteenth-Century American Women’s Poetry” (2004).

Last fall, Loeffelholz taught a first-year writing seminar in the Department of Literatures in English, in the College of Arts and Sciences; she also taught the course at Auburn Correctional Facility as part of the Cornell Prison Education Program (CPEP), offered through SCE.

Loeffelholz said she hopes SCE’s efforts at expanding access to higher education have a lasting impact on the public’s perception of American universities.

“It’s obviously been an incredibly challenging time for universities like Cornell,” she said, “and I’m hoping that what SCE has been able to do, both with the precollege program and getting the online degree launched, will contribute to public understanding and public trust.”

Jackson, who this fall will serve as Kluge Chair in Technology and Society at the Library of Congress, received his Ph.D. in communication and science studies in 2005 from the University of California, San Diego. He spent six years on the faculty at the University of Michigan before joining Cornell in 2011. He has previously served as chair of the Department of Information Science, and professor-dean of William Keeton House on West Campus.

Founded in 1876, the School of Continuing Education enrolls up to 7,000 students, including undergraduates and high school students taking credit and non-credit bearing courses. Along with CPEP, the school supports the Veterans Summer Bridge Program, part-time study for Cornell employees and retirees, and the two-year Weill Cornell Medicine-Qatar Pre-Medical Curriculum, among other programs.