The College of Arts and Sciences is pleased to announce that Dr. Kathryn McClymond, Professor and Chair of Religious Studies, has accepted the position of Associate Dean for Faculty Development, and that Dr. Daniel Deocampo, Professor and Chair of Geosciences, has accepted the Associate Dean for Faculty Evaluation position, which will be reconstituted as the “Associate Dean for Faculty Advancement.”
Both McClymond and DeoCampo will step into their new roles in the Dean’s Office as of July 1, 2017.
The college has decided to close the search for the Associate Dean for Academic Success position without naming an appointee.
In the position of Associate Dean for Faculty Development, McClymond will oversee hiring, retention, and the academic and leadership development of faculty in the college. McClymond’s experience as a scholar, teacher, and administrator have prepared her to excel in this role. McClymond has been very active in her department and at the college and university levels since joining the Georgia State faculty as an assistant professor in 1999. As chair of the Department of Religious Studies since 2008, McClymond has infused innovative programming and an entrepreneurial approach in moving her department forward. McClymond developed new tracks for the department’s M.A. program, including an M.A. in Religious Studies with a Certificate in Non-Profit Management. She established a community-facing “Religion and Public Life Fellow” program, launched the college’s first department-level alumni advisory board, and secured private funding. Kathryn has fostered a supportive environment for scholarly achievement and faculty growth, in which every faculty member has been supported by an individual fellowship or an external grant.
At the university level, McClymond has served as chair of the Senate Faculty Affairs Committee for the past three years. Under her leadership, the Faculty Affairs Committee revamped and standardized the university’s policies and survey instruments for the evaluation of administrators, conducted a comparative study to identify factors that affect faculty progression from associate to full professor, and led an ongoing effort to revise the university’s Student Evaluation of Instruction instrument in line with best practices, which will soon yield a formal proposal. McClymond has continued to teach and mentor students and has remained active as a scholar during her years as an administrator. She was recognized with the college’s Outstanding Teaching Award in 2006, and she has published two books since becoming department chair, her most recent with Oxford University Press. McClymond’s 2008 book, Beyond Sacred Violence: A Comparative Study of Sacrifice, won her the Georgia Author of the Year Award. As part of her current research on moral injury, she is receiving support through a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH).
As Associate Dean for Faculty Advancement, Deocampo will spearhead the evaluation and career progression of faculty in the college. Like McClymond, Deocampo brings strong credentials to the Dean’s Office. Deocampo is an internationally recognized geologist and geochemist whose work is inherently interdisciplinary. He has published 33 peer-reviewed papers and secured more than $1 million in external funding as a PI and another $1 million as Co-PI or Co-I. Deocampo was elected Fellow of the Geological Society of America in 2014, and he has been recognized with awards at the college, university, and university system levels for his research contributions and accomplishments.
As department chair since 2013, Deocampo has guided Geosciences through a period of remarkable growth and success. He has managed a highly diverse group of faculty that span the natural and social sciences. Under Deocampo’s leadership, the Department of Geosciences nearly quadrupled its sponsored funding from $200,000 in FY2013 to $750,000 in FY2016, with virtually every faculty member supported by external funding. Dan oversaw the launch of new B.A. and B.S. programs in Geosciences, designed the department’s new M.S. concentration in Water Sciences, and supported collaborative Geosciences concentrations in the Chemistry and Sociology Ph.D. programs. During this time, the department’s majors grew by 20% at the undergraduate level and 22% at the graduate level.