UMBC President Valerie Sheares Ashby has announced that Manfred H. M. van Dulmen will join the university in July as provost and senior vice president. He will succeed interim provost David Dauwalder.
“From the first time I met him, Manfred’s commitment to students, his care for people with whom he worked, his humility, and his drive for mission-driven excellence were clear, as was his desire to be at UMBC,” says President Sheares Ashby. “I could not be more thrilled about this appointment.”
Van Dulmen says UMBC’s values of inclusive excellence and history of innovation attracted him to the role, and he is excited to work with the UMBC community to articulate strategic priorities and chart a course to the future.
“It is a tremendous opportunity and privilege to be chosen to serve in this role, to build on the incredible history and legacy of the institution to further its excellence and its role as a national leader in higher education,” he said.
A record of success in academic leadership
Van Dulmen comes to UMBC from Kent State University in Ohio, where he is currently serving as senior associate provost and dean of the Graduate College. He started at Kent State as a faculty member in the Department of Psychological Sciences in 2004, and since then served in numerous academic leadership positions at the university, including as interim department chair and associate dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. He led Kent State through the COVID-19 pandemic and developed strategies for enhancing graduate education and for supporting student mental health. He also led strategic planning in academic affairs, helped to enhance and promote research strength across all disciplines, and led efforts resulting in new collaborative degree programs in data science and cybersecurity, as well as in innovative micro-credential programs at Kent State.
“As a first-generation college student and a first-generation immigrant to the U.S. who attended graduate school in America, Manfred is passionate about the transformative power of higher education and about its public mission in service of students and society broadly,” says President Sheares Ashby.
Van Dulmen is an award-winning scholar with a Ph.D. in family social science from the University of Minnesota. He has received millions of dollars in research funding, published more than 100 articles and book chapters, and edited or co-edited three books. He also founded and served as editor-in-chief of the Sage Publications journal Emerging Adulthood. His research interests include adolescent and young adult relationships and experiences, externalizing behavior problems and aggression, and measurement and methodology.
Tags: campus
