coe-staff: Interim College of Education Dean

[Education Dean]

Sent on Behalf of Patrick Phillips, Provost and Senior Vice President

Dear College of Education faculty and staff,


Today we announced The Ballmer Institute for Children's Behavioral Health<https://childrensbehavioralhealth.uoregon.edu/>, a bold and comprehensive effort to answer the growing crisis in children's behavioral health and well-being. The College of Education most certainly laid the foundation for this endeavor with its focus on evidence-based intervention and innovation in the education and prevention sciences. Indeed, many people throughout the College of Education were instrumental in making this a reality, and we thank them, and everyone in the COE, for their hard work, perseverance, and leadership.

As you likely have seen, I have asked Randy Kamphaus to serve as the acting executive director of the Ballmer Institute while a search is conducted for a permanent leader. Randy has been instrumental in the design of the curricular activities of the Ballmer Institute, working closely with College of Education and Psychology Department faculty for the past several months. Randy will continue to work with faculty across campus, community partners and other higher education institutions to realize the goals of the Ballmer Institute. The work of the Ballmer Institute is also well aligned with Randy's disciplinary and research expertise in child behavioral health assessment, early detection and screening, and surveillance.  I am excited to have Randy accept this important leadership role. Because of the extensive scope of the project and the pace with which the work needs to be accomplished, this needs to be Randy's sole focus at this time.
I am therefore also extremely pleased to announce that while Randy is getting the Ballmer Institute off the ground, Laura Lee McIntyre has agreed to serve as interim COE dean. Laura Lee has been at UO for 13 years and is professor of school psychology in the Department of Special Education and Clinical Sciences. Laura Lee has served in a number of leadership roles on campus, including director of graduate studies, department head, and institute director of the Prevention Science Institute. Laura Lee also served on the university's Board of Trustees. Before she joined the University of Oregon in 2009, she was a faculty member in the Psychology Department at Syracuse University and an affiliated faculty member in the Center for Development, Behavior, and Genetics in the Department of Pediatrics at SUNY Upstate Medical University. Laura Lee has also helped to shape the vision for the Balmer Institute and so is a perfect steward for stewarding the linkages between the COE and the Balmer Institute as those develop. I am very thankful to Laura Lee for taking on this important role to help keep the COE running smoothly and moving forward during this period.
Because of the need to have Randy focus exclusively on the Balmer Institute at this time, he is not planning to return as COE dean in the future. Instead, we will launch a national search for the COE dean this fall, and Laura Lee will serve in this interim role until a permanent dean is appointed. I could not be more grateful for how generous with their time and energy both Randy and Laura Lee have been during this period. They have been serving you extremely well. I recognize that this will feel a bit disruptive for the moment to the COE community, but it is also a major inflection point in the next stage of development of the COE and incredibly strong validation of the vision and commitment that the entire community has had in improving the lives of the children of the state.

While we celebrate the launch of this first-of-its kind ecosystem of support for Oregon's K-12 students' behavioral and mental health and wish both Randy and Laura Lee success in these interim roles, I also realize that you may have questions about the COE leadership change and how the Ballmer Institute may intersect with your work and programs. There will be an Information Session on March 10 in which more information will be shared with the campus at large. And I welcome the opportunity meet with COE faculty and staff in the coming weeks for a conversation about this transition.  In the meantime, please feel free to reach out to me directly with any questions.

Thank you once again for your contributions.

Sincerely,

Patrick Phillips
Provost and Senior Vice President

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