Brooke Barnett named interim associate provost

Barnett will convene Elon's Inclusive Community Council and oversee strategic plan initiatives related to diversity and global engagement.

Brooke Barnett

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Elon University Provost Steven House has appointed Brooke Barnett interim Associate Provost for Inclusive Community, a new position that will oversee the university’s strategic plan initiatives related to diversity and global engagement.

Barnett has been serving as senior faculty fellow and advisor to the president since June 2010, providing leadership for numerous efforts to strengthen the Elon community, including and supporting people of many backgrounds, cultures, beliefs and perspectives, and providing an enhanced focus on learning around difference and efforts to create a welcoming campus climate for all. In this new role she will continue that work, reporting directly to the provost and remaining as a member of the president’s senior staff.

“Brook has been a strong leader in building a more inclusive community at Elon, devoting her considerable knowledge, skills and energy to this important work,” House said. “President Lambert and I agreed that it is time to dedicate a senior position to provide ongoing leadership in advancing our goals. Brooke is the perfect person to establish this position within the administration and lay the foundation for Elon’s continued development in this important area.”

House said Barnett will hold the position on an interim basis until the university appoints a permanent Associate Provost for Inclusive Community in June 2014. That search will begin in about 12 months.

Among her duties will be convening Elon’s Inclusive Community Council, being a resource in the strategic hiring of faculty and for employee resource groups, working with the Office of Student Life on multicultural academic programming and intercommunity relations, working to enhance the residential campus experience and living-learning communities, administering diversity grants for Elon’s Center for the Advancement of Teaching and Learning, and working with Elon’s Isabella Cannon Global Education Center to enhance academic programs with an international perspective.

Barnett will work closely with the director for Inclusive Community and Well-being, director of the Gender and LGBTQ Center, the university chaplain, the director of the Multicultural Center, the Academic Diversity Fellow, the LGBTQ Faculty Fellow and the Residential Campus Faculty Fellow.

Barnett joined the Elon in 2001 as a faculty member in the School of Communications. She previously taught at Indiana University and has worked as a television news director, reporter and documentary producer.