Mathios

At the request of Provost Kent Fuchs and President David Skorton, the Cornell Board of Trustees' Executive Committee voted Sept. 6 to approve the appointment of Alan Mathios, the Rebecca Q. and James C. Morgan Dean of the College of Human Ecology, to a second five-year term, beginning July 1, 2013.

"Dean Mathios has received the broad support of Human Ecology's faculty, staff, students and alumni due to his strong and inclusive leadership of the college. He has also provided great service to the university in a number of other areas, including his excellent work as co-chair of the Middle States Reaccreditation process," Fuchs said.

"It is an honor to be able to serve another term as dean," Mathios said. "I look forward to nurturing existing cross-college collaborations and building new ones, to further integrating our undergraduate curricula with our research and outreach missions, and to building on our strengths in each of our units through strategic faculty renewal."

Mathios has overseen the expansion of programs across all five departments and outreach units in the college, with the aim of advancing the college's successful multidisciplinary approach to teaching, research and outreach. Under his leadership, the college is leading cross-college collaborations in the Ithaca and Weill Cornell Medical College campuses through new programs including a dual Ph.D.-J.D. program in developmental psychology and law and the Bronfenbrenner Center for Translational Research, as well as the expansion of the Cornell Population Center. He has also overseen major facilities projects such as the new Human Ecology Building, which hosts research and teaching from across the college, and the Cornell MRI Facility to be housed in the newly renovated Martha Van Rensselaer Hall.

Mathios also guided the continued growth in programs at the college during the economic downturn with a combination of generous donor support, an increase in sources of external research funding and administrative streamlining consistent with the universitywide strategic plan.

During his next term, Mathios said a high priority is to foster excellence in the research program across the college by recruiting and retaining the best faculty in the fields of nutrition, human development, and policy and design. Since becoming dean, he has hired 29 new faculty members, or 29 percent of the college faculty, with 17 new faculty hired in the last two years.

The college will also continue to offer internationally recognized educational programs, he said. The dean's strategic goals include an increase in the number of undergraduates who integrate both research and experiential learning opportunities so that they become not just consumers of knowledge but producers as well. To do so, the college aims to build on innovative approaches to support self-directed learning and to create as many opportunities as possible for students to work with faculty members on research projects and translate their findings in the field through the outreach mission.

Mathios became dean in 2008, after having served as interim dean in 2007-08 and as the college's senior associate dean for academic affairs and undergraduate education 2004-07. A professor of policy analysis and management, he is the former associate chair and director of undergraduate studies for the Department of Policy Analysis and Management. A major focus of his research is the effect of Food and Drug Administration regulatory policies on consumer and firm behavior. Mathios co-chaired the university's Middle States Accreditation Steering Committee and helped guide Cornell to its successful reaccreditation in 2011.

He came to Cornell in 1992 following six years at the Federal Trade Commission as a staff economist and econometrics consultant. He has been the recipient of a number of teaching and advising awards including the SUNY Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Teaching and Cornell's Kendall S. Carpenter Memorial Advising Award.