Former Graduate Division Dean Gale Morrison has been named acting dean of UC Santa Barbara's Gevirtz School. Morrison will serve as dean for the period when Dean Jane Close Conoley serves as acting chancellor of UC Riverside while that campus conducts its national search for its next chancellor.
"I am honored to serve as acting dean for the Gevirtz School of Education during Dean Conoley's absence," Morrison says. "The Gevirtz School holds a special place in my heart, as it is where I began my academic career. I am happy to help support the many ongoing initiatives of the School and look forward to my time with faculty, students, staff, and friends of the School."
In a statement UC Santa Barbara Chancellor Henry T. Yang thanked Professor Morrison "for her willingness to return to our campus in order to help our Gevirtz School during this interim period. We appreciate Gale's leadership, her dedication to our campus, and the wisdom and experience she brings to this important role."
Prior to her retirement in June of 2012, Dr. Morrison served as the dean of UCSB's Graduate Division for more than seven years, and prior to that as the acting dean of the Gevirtz School for a year and a half. She is a professor emeritus in the Department of Counseling, Clinical, and School Psychology of the Gevirtz School. In addition to her deanships, Morrison has served as chair of the UCSB Academic Senate Graduate Council and the UC NSF AGEP (Alliance for Graduate Education and the Professoriate) Steering Committee, as co-chair of the UCSB Committee on Excellence in Graduate Education in preparation for WASC re-accreditation, and as a member of the UC Student Health Committee, the UC Academic Senate Coordinating Committee on Graduate Affairs, and the Council of Graduate Schools Government Relations Advisory Committee.
Dr. Morrison received her Ph.D. in Special Education from UC Riverside. She joined the faculty at UCSB in 1980. Her research examined the risk and resilience patterns for upper elementary students with and without disabilities who experience discipline problems at school. Her work documented the educational and behavioral trajectories of students as they transition to middle or junior high schools. Dr. Morrison has published work on resiliency with special needs children, as well as work on school safety and violence. She is one of the first research professionals to publish information about suspension/expulsion disciplinary processes as they affect special education students.
"The faculty of the Gevirtz School are, I am sure, thrilled as I am that Dean Morrison has agreed to be interim dean until my return from UC Riverside," Conoley says. "Her experience with the school and UCSB promises to accelerate the school's progress across all our missions: research excellence, instruction for professional leadership, and influential community engagement. I am delighted."