Jennifer Brown has been appointed vice president of academic affairs and provost at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona effective April 1, 2022. In that role, she will be the university’s chief academic officer, with responsibility for the institution’s academic programs, resources, and planning. The deans of the eight academic colleges report to the provost as do the units tasked with promoting student success and faculty research.
Cal Poly Pomona enrolls nearly 28,000 undergraduate students and more than 2,100 graduate students, according to the most recent data supplied to the U.S. Department of Education. Women make up 47 percent of the undergraduate student body.
Dr. Brown is currently the vice provost and dean for undergraduate education at the University of California, Riverside, where she leads institutional student success efforts for that university’s more than 20,000 undergraduate students. She is also a professor in the School of Public Policy.
Prior to joining the University of California, Riverside in 2018, Dr. Brown served as vice provost and dean of the Graduate School at Oregon State University. She began her faculty career at Purdue University in 2004, where she held a joint appointment in the departments of horticulture and landscape architecture, and agricultural economics. She also served as the inaugural director of distance education. Her applied research program in sustainability and the specialty crop industry has been recognized nationally, resulting in her appointment to the National Agriculture Statistics Service Advisory Committee.
Dr. Brown earned a bachelor’s degree in ornamental horticulture and a master’s degree in natural resources and environmental sciences from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She earned her Ph.D. in horticulture with an emphasis in marketing and consumer behavior from Michigan State University.