BMCC Welcomes Three New Academic Leaders

In its efforts to enhance student retention, faculty excellence and institutional growth, the Borough of Manhattan Community College, The City University of New York (BMCC/CUNY), has brought on board three new deans, two of whom are filling new positions within the College.

Christopher Shults, BMCC’s new Dean of Institutional Effectiveness and Strategic Planning, will come on board February 1. Jim Berg is BMCC’s first Associate Dean of Faculty, and begins his role on January 25. Janice Zummo, BMCC’s first Assistant Dean of Academic Support Services, joined the college in early January.

“I am thrilled to welcome three very strong leaders to our team in Academic Affairs,” said Karrin Wilks, Provost and Senior Vice President of Academic Affairs. “They collectively bring the skills, knowledge and experience to further our strategic priorities; particularly to improve student success and support faculty development and scholarship.”

Christopher Shults will oversee and develop an institutional effectiveness system aimed at refining programs and services, as BMCC’s Dean of Institutional Effectiveness and Strategic Planning. He will oversee the offices of Assessment and Institutional Research. Since 2011, Shults has served as Executive Director of Planning and Institutional Effectiveness at Suffolk County Community College, and before that time was Acting Associate Provost for Academic Programs, Innovation and Strategy at Mississippi Valley State University in Itta Bena, Mississippi. He earned his Ph.D. in Higher Education at the University of Michigan.

As Associate Dean of Faculty, Jim Berg will oversee programs that are key to the College’s strategic priorities, including the Office of Research, E-Learning, and the Center for Excellence in Teaching, Learning and Scholarship (CETLS). For the last eight years, Berg has served as Dean of Arts and Sciences at the College of the Desert in Palm Desert, California. An active scholar who has focused on the work of writer Christopher Isherwood, Berg earned his Ph.D. at the University of Minnesota. He was a founding director of the Center for Teaching Excellence at the University of Maine, and Associate Director for Grants Programs at the Center for Teaching and Learning at Minnesota State Colleges and Universities.

BMCC’s new Assistant Dean of Support Services, Janice Zummo, will develop and assess programs that strengthen BMCC’s long-term goals, including the Learning Resource Center, the Writing Center, Immersion, College Now and Upward Bound. Zummo earned her Ph.D. in Education at Walden University in Minneapolis, Minnesota. She began her higher education career as a tutor in the Writing Center at John Jay College/CUNY, and quickly advanced to leadership positions including that of Director of the SEEK program at Medgar Evers College, where she also developed a peer mentoring program and managed Coordinated Undergraduate Education (CUE).