Stephen C. Nodvin, Ph.D.
Background

I am currently the Director of the School of Arts and Sciences of Mount Ida College in Newton, Massachusetts. My background is in science and technology and I have held leadership positions in academia, government, and business. In my current role as Director of the School of Arts and Sciences at Mount Ida College, , I supervise 23 full-time and 35 part-time professors within the largest of five Schools at the College. Our School provides a majority of the service courses required within the All College Curriculum of the College. Each semester, I coordinate the offerings and scheduling of 180-200 courses or course sections. Our School also offers Bachelor degrees in American Studies, Child Development, Communications, Criminal Justice, Human Services, Liberal Studies, and Psychology. This year I worked with my Program Directors and other faculty members toward the approval and establishment of new degree programs in English, Forensic Science, and Biology.

My responsibilities include the overview of curricular development, the annual review and evaluation of Programs and Program Directors, the development and management of Program budgets, the recruitment and hiring of full-time and adjunct faculty, and, in coordination with other School Directors and the Registrar, the development of class schedules and room and faculty assignments. I also lead the accreditation activities for our School Programs for agencies including the Massachusetts Department of Education (MDOE) and the New England Association of Schools and Colleges (NEASC). I recently served as a NEASC visiting team member for the accreditation review of a baccalaureate college in Vermont. For that team, I was assigned lead roles for Standard Four (Academic Programs) and Standard Seven (Library and Other Information Resources). The NEASC ten year review for Mount Ida College will occur in 2007 and I am currently a member of the self-study committee at Mount Ida and am chairing the Standard Four review.

Prior to my work at Mount Ida College, I served in a number of positions in academia, government, and business. I have been a government researcher and administrator, university professor, business owner and entrepreneur, and technical consultant. I have taught undergraduate and graduate courses; directed Master’s, Doctoral, and Post-Doctoral students; and have presented research results at many national and international scientific meetings and symposia. I have authored and co-authored scientific research papers published in peer-reviewed journals. I organized and was the proceedings editor of an international scientific conference on fire and the environment published by the U.S. Forest Service. I have developed business plans and made presentations to the investment community including venture capital firms and Wall Street investment banks. As part of my research and educational activities, I participated in federal agency and congressional workshops, made presentations to school and civic groups, and gave interviews to local, regional and national media including CNN and PBS.

As a Predoctoral Fellow at Cornell University, I completed my doctoral research on biogeochemical processes in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. The focus of that work was the effects of atmospheric deposition and forest management on nutrient flows and streamwater quality. The results of that work led to the publication of a number of papers in journals including Biogeochemistry and the journal Nature. Since completing my doctoral work, I have had the opportunity of conducting related research projects on streams, lakes, and watersheds in the Sierra Nevada Mountains of California, the coastal mountains of Maine, and several national parks including Sequoia National Park and the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. My research areas have included studying multiple environmental impacts to natural ecosystems including: global climate change; atmospheric deposition and air pollution; acid mine drainage; bridge construction, forest management, invasive and introduced species, and fire.

As a research scientist and administrator, I developed a number of grant proposals for cooperative research projects. These projects were submitted to and funded by agencies including the Environmental Protection Agency, the National Park Service, the U.S. Forest Service, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the Electric Power Research Institute. I served in the capacity of project manager, research coordinator, or principal investigator and managed the operations and budgets of the projects. In several instances, I established analytical laboratories for testing water quality and identified and implemented new field research sites and stream monitoring programs. I coordinated research efforts and logistics for projects that involved at any one time in excess of a dozen academic institutions, corporate landowners, and state and government agencies. I managed dozens of students, staff, and cooperative researchers on campus and at numerous environmental field sites.

A major responsibility in many of the positions that I have held has been to provide leadership in communication and coordination among multiple departments within one organization and among multiple academic and governmental organizations. This leadership included providing a vision for the organization and effectively communicating that vision both to internal staff and external collaborative, funding, and community organizations.