July 24, 2023
Dear Colleagues,
I am pleased to share that Eboni Zamani-Gallaher, Professor and Associate Dean for Equity, Justice, and Strategic Partnerships in the School of Education, has agreed to serve as the Renée and Richard Goldman Interim Dean of that school.
She will begin this role effective August 1, 2023, as Valerie Kinloch returns to her alma mater, Johnson C. Smith University (JCSU) in Charlotte, North Carolina, to lead as its next president.
Eboni came to Pitt from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign College of Education, where she was a professor and spent seven years as director of the Office for Community College Research and Leadership. While there, she also worked as associate head of the Department of Education Policy, Organization, and Leadership, and as associate dean.
An accomplished scholar whose research has secured funding from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Eboni’s scholarship focuses on equitable participation in higher education; transfer, access, and retention policies; minoritized student populations in marginalized institutional contexts; and racial equity and campus climate in postsecondary education pathways.
In addition to her work at Pitt, she is actively involved with a variety of professional organizations. She is currently executive director of the Council for Study of Community Colleges, a member of the Community College Review Editorial Board, an advisory board member for the Institute for Women’s Policy Research, and a committee member with the Black Learner Excellence Expert Advisory Committee.
Eboni has earned numerous notable recognitions, including being named a 2023 American College Personnel Association Senior Scholar Diplomate and an American Educational Research Association Fellow. Other achievements include earning the DIVERSE: Issues in Higher Education, Diversity Champion of the Year Award; National Association of Student Personnel Administrators Community College Research Award; and Association for the Study of Higher Education Council on Ethnic Participation Founder’s Service Award, among others.
Eboni holds a PhD in educational organization and leadership from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and an MS in general experimental psychology and BS in psychology from Western Illinois University.
I sincerely thank Eboni for her willingness to take on the interim role, and I look forward to working with her to support the School of Education. A national search for the next permanent dean will be launched in the time ahead.
Please join me in congratulating Eboni on this new assignment.
Best,
Joe
Joseph J. McCarthy
Interim Provost and Senior Vice Chancellor
William Kepler Whiteford Professor of Chemical Engineering
University of Pittsburgh