Athens State University is pleased to announce that Dr. Alyson Gill will be joining the University as the institution’s Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs and Student Services. She was selected after a nationwide search which included virtual interviews and on-campus forums with faculty, staff, and students.
Dr. Alyson Gill has served in higher education leadership since 2015, first as Associate Provost for Instructional Innovation at a large, public, land-grant institution, then as Provost at two private colleges. Prior to moving into an administrative role, she was a tenured faculty member in Art History and the founding director for the Center for Digital Initiatives at Arkansas State University. From 2015-18, she served as Associate Provost for Instructional Innovation and Associate Professor, Art History at University of Massachusetts, Amherst where she served as a catalyst for instructional innovation and technology initiatives by building and sustaining relationships with faculty, chairs, and deans around strategies and programming. While at UMass, she also played an advocacy role on behalf of faculty and students in campus matters related to instructional innovations, pedagogical advancements, and teaching and learning with technology, working closely with academic units to ensure that their needs were incorporated into undergraduate and graduate seated and online course delivery and instructional technology plans.
Gill earned her Ph.D. in History from the University of Memphis, and an M.A. in Art History specializing in Greek architecture from University of California, Irvine. Her dissertation topic focused on Greek baths and the gendered use of space in Classical antiquity, and this work brought her to Greece where she worked at the Ohio State University excavations at Isthmia and later returned on a Fulbright grant to live in Athens. She has been awarded several grants through the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) including two Digital Humanities Start-Up grants: Ashes2Art (2007) and Dangerous Embodiments (2014-17), and co-directed two NEH Advanced Topics in the Digital Humanities Summer Institutes, “Humanities Heritage 3D Visualizations” (2012) and “Advanced Challenges in Theory and Practice in 3D Modeling of Cultural Heritage Sites” (2015-16).
“Dr. Gill brings an impressive career in higher education and a forward-thinking approach to Athens State University,” said Dr. Catherine Wehlburg, President of Athens State. “Her focus on student success, teaching and learning quality, and academic innovation make her the right choice for this role. I look forward to working with her to build on our successes and opportunities.”
“I am thrilled to be joining the Athens State University community at this pivotal point in the University’s history and to serve on the leadership team,” stated Dr. Alyson Gill. “Athens State is delivering on its promise to empower and support students and is positioned to grow and flourish over the coming years. The deep love that the community has for the University is evident everywhere you go, and I knew from the first moment that I stepped foot on campus that I wanted to be part of that story.”
Gill and her husband have four daughters, and their most recent addition to the family is a Goldendoodle puppy (Lucy) who joins their 6-year-old Goldendoodle Katie. Dr. Gill is scheduled to begin her duties on July 1.