Brown named University College dean, PACE director

Posted by University News Service

April 29, 2011

Daniel Brown has been named dean of University College and Director of the Personalized Academic and Career Exploration (PACE) Center at Texas State University-San Marcos.

Brown’s appointment was announced by Texas State President Denise Trauth on Friday, April 29.

“Dr. Brown is an excellent choice for this position at Texas State. He has served as a faculty member, administrator, program coordinator and dean. He has also demonstrated significant ability at improving the first-year experience and student success. Those capabilities will suit him well as he assumes this important new leadership position at Texas State,” Trauth said.

To be located in the new Undergraduate Academic Center currently under construction at Texas State, the PACE Center will be a one-stop advising, mentoring and counseling center for Texas State freshmen. Undeclared students will receive assistance in selecting an academic path, and students with declared majors will receive help in navigating their chosen fields of study.

Brown has served as dean of University College at Texas A&M University-Kingsville since 2005. During his tenure at Texas A&M-Kingsville, its University College achieved degree-granting status as home for the Bachelor of Applied Arts and Sciences program.

From 1996 to 2005, Brown was a faculty member, program coordinator and administrator at Eastern New Mexico University. He provided leadership to freshman academic advising and served as a campus leader in the development of the university’s Freshman Seminar. As a faculty member in the Department of Family and Consumer Sciences and Agriculture, he developed three new degree programs.

Since 2008, Brown has received approximately $9 million in external funding in support of strategic campus initiatives from federal and private sources, including two successful cooperative development grants and one individual development grant from the U.S. Department of Education Title V Program. These projects have strengthened the university’s ability to serve Hispanic and low-income students through investments in advising, academic support, undergraduate research, graduate student scholarships, instructional technology and a new on-campus internship program.

Brown has given more than 50 conference and invited presentations and is the author or co-author of publications on plant pathology and plant/microbe responses to changing environments.

            At ENMU, Brown served on the Faculty Senate and served as chair of the General Education Committee and University Council. At Texas A&M-Kingsville, he has served on the Core Curriculum Committee, Core Curriculum Task Force, Time-to-Degree Task Force, Student Success Task Force and Foundations of Excellence in the First College Year committee. In 2004, he served as president of the New Mexico Higher Education Assessment Association.

Brown holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in biology from Pittsburg State University (Kansas) and a doctorate in plant pathology from Oklahoma State University. In 2001, he was recognized as a recipient of the Outstanding Alumni Award at Pittsburg State.