Debbie Tahmassebi, Ph.D., an American Council on Education Fellow, is spending a year at Loyola Marymount University learning to become a future college president or provost.
Tahmassebi says she selected LMU as her host university because she was interested in working at a campus with a strong institutional mission that was developing forward-thinking plans and mindful of their mission as a university.
The ACE Fellows Program was established in 1965 to build leadership in American higher education by identifying and preparing promising senior faculty and administrators for responsible positions in college and university administration.
After meeting with LMU President David W. Burcham during her selection process Tahmassebi said, “I was particularly interested in LMU’s strategic plan and following his leadership of that plan. During her year at LMU, she will have an opportunity to study the management styles of LMU’s senior leadership.
She is currently working on a university-wide project, under the direction of Burcham and Abbie Robinson-Armstrong, vice president of intercultural affairs, to improve the workflow that supports the strategic-planning process and the dissemination of information in decision-making among units across the university.
“Having Loyola Marymount University selected to host an ACE fellow is a reflection of how this university’s commitment to academic excellence and our mission to create leaders who are men and women for others is being recognized nationally,” said Burcham.
Tahmassebi, who is on sabbatical from the University of San Diego where she is a professor and chair of the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, is one of 56 ACE fellows selected nationally for the 2012-13 academic year.
Of the more than 1,700 participants in the 47 years of the program, more than 300 have become chief executive officers and more than 1,100 have become provosts, vice presidents or deans.