Trending
Pennsylvania College of Technology Board of Trustees has approved Neslihan Alp as the college's next vice president for academic affairs and provost, the highest-ranking academic officer at the institution, a special mission affiliate of Penn State.
The position was previously held by Dr. Michael J. Reed who is set to become the college's president on July 1. He succeeds Dr. Davie Jane Gilmour who is retiring June 30 after 24 years as president of the college.
"She has excellent qualifications for this position," Gilmour stated.
Gilmour said that Alp had four
on-campus interviews and the "feedback was very strong for Nesli."
"She comes with significant experience. (She's) Very interested in coming here and has just worked really well with us throughout the interview process and all of her interactions with us," Gilmour said.
Alp has been at Indiana State University since 2018, where she has served as dean and professor for the 2,000-student College of Technology. In that role, she has led five departments, the Flight Academy and Air Force and Army ROTC, overseeing 80 faculty and 20 staff, according to a news release from Penn College.
Previously she had served in a variety of administration and faculty roles at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga for 19 years. Her higher-education experience also includes developing more than 20 undergraduate and graduate courses, both in-person and online.
Alp has earned multiple awards for teaching, research, service and diversity areas as a female leader in STEM. She was also selected as a Fellow of the American Society of Engineering
Management. She is a professional engineer and serves as a program evaluator for the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABE), the release from the college stated.
"She brings such a unique set of experience both with transformational leadership and also with engineering. She is passionate about our mission," Reed said.
"I just feel like our systems are perfectly set and I think she's going to bring us real energy to continually move our mission forward," he added.
Alp will assume her new position at Penn College on Aug. 1.