From University of Mary Washington
Peter S. Kelly has been appointed as dean of the College of Education at the University of Mary Washington. The selection was announced by Acting Provost Nina Mikhalevsky. He will begin work at UMW on July 25.
In this position, Kelly will be responsible for providing leadership in defining the College of Education’s strategic priorities and for recruiting and retaining a diverse and highly qualified student body and faculty, according to Mikhalevsky in an email to the UMW community. In addition, he is charged with continuing the current growth of the College of Education across its undergraduate and graduate program and successfully leading the college through its next accreditation cycle, scheduled for fall of 2019.
Kelly is currently interim associate dean for the School of Health Sciences and Education at Truman State University in Kirksville, Missouri. Possessing substantial experience with state and national accreditation and with program assessment, he successfully led Truman’s Masters in Education program through accreditation efforts with the Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation (CAEP) as early adopters of the new standards and processes. He also has served on five national accreditation teams.
The primary focus of Kelly’s teaching and research is in special education, with a particular interest in the development of professional development partnerships with local schools, according to Mikhalevsky. Kelly co-authored two successful grant projects to support this work, and it has yielded numerous state, national and international presentations. To better prepare teachers to meet the challenges of an increasingly diverse student body, he led the development of several programs, including an interdisciplinary disability studies minor, a collaborative learning experience with pre-service teachers from Harris-Stowe State University and an English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) certification program. Kelly also was a co-author and project director of the Praxis Program, a personnel preparation project funded by the Missouri Office of Special Education and Rehabilitation Services.
Kelly currently serves as chair of the Missouri Council for Education Deans, and he serves on Missouri’s Network for Transforming Educator Preparation (NTEP) leadership team, which is responsible for the development, approval and implementation of a new state system for evaluating teacher preparation programs in Missouri. He received a B.S. in education and his M.S. and Ph.D., both in behavior disorders, from the University of Kansas.
