Cornell appoints Love dean of students

ITHACA, N.Y. — Marla Love has been recently named the dean of students at Cornell University.

Love had been serving as interim dean of students since September 2020. Before that, she was Cornell’s senior associate dean of students, where she oversaw diversity and inclusion

“I’m very excited about this opportunity to lead at such a critical time when we are back to having a full on-campus semester and to continue navigating how the pandemic has shifted the student experience,” Love said in a news release on the Cornell Chronicle website. “I look forward to partnering with my colleagues and with our students to consider new ways to bring about student transformation…”

Since arriving at Cornell in 2017, Love has been influential in building multiple programs that foster overall student success, academic and personal excellence, and strengthen a sense of inclusion and belonging on campus, the university said. During the 2019-20 academic year, she co-chaired the campus-wide mental-health review. Part of that process included engaging with faculty partners to better understand their perspectives on student mental health.

Love’s work on equity and inclusion initiatives has included the creation of the Community Response Team, to support students in distress in lieu of law enforcement. She has also provided leadership for the implementation of the Kessler Presidential Scholars Program, which offers four years of academic, financial, and social support to eligible first-generation college students.

Before coming to Cornell, Love served as director of graduate and professional student affairs at Azusa Pacific University from 2016-17; as instructor and academic counselor at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan from 2014-16; and as assistant dean of students, director of Scripps Communities of Resources and Empowerment, and co-chair of the Presidential Advisory Committee on Diversity and Inclusion at Scripps College in Claremont, California from 2007-14.

Love received a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Calvin College in 2002 and a master’s degree in higher education from the University of Michigan in 2003. She is currently a doctoral candidate at Azusa Pacific University in the higher education doctoral program.