Hill to Head Efforts at SUNY Plattsburgh Branch Campus

“David and I have worked closely together at Keene State College, where I was a vice president and he was a dean, and we obviously worked together at Plattsburgh,” said Golden, who, in addition to serving as dean of the branch campus, also served as provost and vice-president of academic affairs at SUNY Plattsburgh. “I have 100 percent confidence in David that he will do a good job.”

In his new post, Hill said he plans to continue the work started by Golden.

“Bob has done an amazing job down here,” Hill said. “When he was provost he championed the idea that we could have a viable branch campus in Queensbury at SUNY Adirondack that would serve those non-traditional students who are, for the most part, place bound. Those students (and prospective students) have few choices for pursuing higher education goals. Bob saw the opportunity to provide high quality programs for them in the areas of psychology, criminal justice, business and childhood education to supplement the already existing graduate programs in education. Once here, he worked to expand our offerings at Hudson Valley Community College.”

Hill came to SUNY Plattsburgh in 2004 as its new dean of health, education, and human services and immediately began working with staff to revitalize the college’s teacher education program so that it could gain accreditation. Under his leadership, a redesigned program took shape — one that focused on best practices in education, featured early field placements and utilized inquiry-based assessment. The changes led the Teacher Education Accreditation Council to accredit the program for five years — the highest number of years that the agency will give to a first-time applicant.

Believing in a communal style of leadership, Hill worked to involve all faculty in the changes so they came from the ground up.

“I was a colleague, an equal as much as I could be, and the product is much better because of that,” he said.

“He helped us all become trailblazers,” said Dr. Bob Ackland, one of the program’s coordinators. “That’s an amazing kind of leadership.”

Prior to coming to SUNY Plattsburgh, Hill served as dean of the professional and graduate studies division at Keene State College in New Hampshire. He has also held positions on the education faculty at Keene and The Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio.

He has served as an editor of several professional journals, has worked with area superintendents on the Grow Our Administrators Locally program and is a member of the Association for Curriculum Development and Supervision and the Council for Learning Disabilities, among other groups.

Hill holds both a master’s and a doctorate in special education from Temple University in Pennsylvania and a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Allegheny College, also in Pennsylvania.