FDU Appoints Gillian Small University Provost and Senior Vice President

On May 6, 2016

Fairleigh Dickinson University has named Gillian Small University Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs, making her the University’s second ranking officer. Her appointment will begin August 1, 2016.

“Dr. Small’s depth of experiences, her many strengths and talents and her passion for advancing and building successful initiatives make her an ideal choice for this critical position,” said University President Sheldon Drucker.

President-elect Christopher A. Capuano added, “Small has a well-established history of building collaborative opportunities both across CUNY as well as with external partners. She will be a great champion for FDU’s academic programs and progress. She also has a strong track record of working with administrators and faculty to develop and execute ambitious strategic plans. She will no doubt be an integral part of the future of our great and growing university.”

An internationally recognized scholar, Small comes to FDU from The City University of New York (CUNY) where she serves as the Vice Chancellor for Research. At CUNY, she has been a member of the Chancellor’s Cabinet and an officer of the University that consists of 24 colleges and schools and approximately 270,000 full-time students. There, she manages a number of major responsibilities such as strategic planning for new science facilities and operations, fundraising from private and federal sources, budgetary planning and oversight, hiring of faculty, student programming, innovation, entrepreneurship and economic development, and university-wide research compliance. She raised more than $10 million in external funding over the last six years.

During the last decade, Small created a strong infrastructure to support research and scholarship. She led the University’s Decade of Science, a $2-billion initiative for programs and new facilities that has raised CUNY’s profile for science research and education. She also spearheaded a $3.7-million grant from the National Science Foundation to create the New York City Regional Innovation Node, leading a collaboration with Columbia University and New York University to offer training and support to faculty and student innovators.

Since 2008, Small also served as the founding Executive Director of a 200,000 square-foot Advanced Science Research Center — a state-of-the-art facility that fosters innovative research in various areas of science. She developed the plans for the center and continues to lead recruitment efforts that are attracting world-class scientists as well as creating national and international partnerships.

In her combined roles at CUNY, Dr. Small has executed many important business plans, and currently manages a multi-million dollar capital and operating budget to support research, innovation and entrepreneurship across the University.

In her field as a cell and molecular biologist, Small gained a national and international reputation and ran a research group that was federally funded for more than 20 years. Born in Great Britain, she arrived in the United States in 1985 and in 1988 joined the faculty at the University of Florida, Gainesville. She later was an assistant and then associate professor at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York, before joining CUNY in 2001 as Associate University Dean for Research and Professor of Biology. She later was promoted to University Dean for Research, and then, in 2008, following a national search, was appointed CUNY’s first Vice Chancellor for Research.

Small earned her Bachelor of Science and Ph.D. degrees in biological sciences from Wolverhampton Polytechnic (now University) in the United Kingdom. She also has done postdoctoral work at Cambridge University and Rockefeller University in New York. Small’s many honors include the Feminist Press 2013 award for advancing women in science. In 2015, she was elected to the board of the national Association for Women in Science.

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