Lycoming College is pleased to announce the promotion of Susan Ross, Ph.D., to associate provost for experiential learning. She is responsible for the College’s new Center for Enhanced Academic Experiences, which pairs students with important educational experiences including internships, research and global education opportunities.
“Dr. Ross is an award-winning teacher who has served in many important leadership positions on campus,” said Phil Sprunger, provost and dean of Lycoming College. “Over the years, she has personally worked with many students to provide them with research and internship opportunities, so she was the perfect choice for this new position that will prepare them for success after graduation.”
Another key responsibility for the center includes the management of the College’s career advising activities, which helps students select a major and identify career options that best fit each student’s values, skills and personalities. The College has developed a unique structure of embedded career advisors who work specifically with faculty and students within related academic disciplines. While the center serves as their administrative home, these embedded career advisors work in the same campus location as the faculty they support so they are easily accessible to students as they progress through their career explorations during college and beyond. The collaboration that the career advisors have with faculty of related departments significantly increases the level of integration between academic preparation and professional development.
In addition to directing the center, Ross will be responsible for the management of the College’s first-year seminars and distinctive residential program, called Affinity Housing. First year seminars help students’ transition to college-level work through an emphasis on active engagement through readings and assignments that are designed to hone written, oral and information literacy skills. The seminars also help students integrate into the campus community, which improves overall satisfaction and graduation rates. Affinity Housing is composed of campus residential communities where students and faculty explore thematic academic interests beyond formal classroom boundaries. These academically-oriented residential communities bring students from a variety of majors together to deepen the campus experience.
Ross joined the Lycoming College faculty in 1998 as an assistant professor of sociology. Over the course of several years, she was promoted to associate professor and then to full professor. She is the recipient of two teaching awards from Lycoming College — the Howard C. Berthold Faculty Research and Information Competencies Award in 2012 and the Junior Faculty Teaching Award in 2002.
Her teaching and research interests have included the sociology of law, sociology of war and the military, family sociology and research methodology. She co-authored “Deployed: How Reservists Bear the Burden of Iraq,” with Michael Musheno ’69. She has a bachelor’s degree from Millersville University, and a master’s and doctorate from the University of New Hampshire.