Dorie J. Gilbert, Ph.D.
Effective August 31, 2024, Dr. Dorie Gilbert will leave her post as the dean of the Marvin D. and June Samuel Brailsford College of Arts & Sciences to return to a full-time faculty role.
Dr. Gilbert joined PVAMU in the fall of 2019 as dean of graduate studies and subsequently became dean of the Brailsford College of Arts & Sciences in 2020, holding both roles simultaneously during the 2020-2021 academic year. Her time as Dean of the College of Arts & Sciences is marked by the development of new structures to enhance research, curriculum, and student success.
Under the leadership of Dr. Gilbert, the College significantly increased STEM-related external funding. She was instrumental in promoting the research profile of humanities and social sciences, evident in an over 50% increase in the number of external proposals from faculty in those areas, due in part to relationship-building with organizations such as the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS), the premiere representative of scholarship in the humanities and interpretative social sciences.
For the past two years, Dr. Gilbert has served as the Co-PI on a Teagle Foundation/National Endowment for the Humanities initiative, providing oversight on a system-wide approach to revitalizing the humanities in general education across The Texas A&M University System. She also serves as the PI or Co-PI on grants focused on graduate-level STEM pipeline programs, such as the NSF Louis Stokes Bridge to Doctorate grant and the Dow Undergraduate Research Fellows Program. In partnership with the PVAMU MACH-III Center, which joined the College in 2021, Dr. Gilbert established the Endowed Professor of STEM Community Engagement to launch the Science Innovation Lab, an on-campus site for P-12 learning activities and multidisciplinary collaborations. In 2023, she also worked to rebrand and launch PVAMU’s Solar and Lunar Observatory Complex, successfully conducting two eclipse viewings this academic year.
With a solid student-centered focus, Dr. Gilbert created the Dean’s Student Leadership Council and the Brailsford Student Spirit Award to support student engagement and student leadership opportunities. She worked to transform the University’s Writing Center into the Center for Writing and Public Discourse, which emphasizes writing across the curriculum along with speech and debate in the core curriculum. As part of that effort, Dr. Gilbert launched the first campus-wide PV Toastmaster’s chapter in January 2024.
Dr. Gilbert has also been actively involved in national leadership roles. In 2022, she was elected to the Board of Directors for the National Council of Colleges of Arts & Sciences, marking the first time an HBCU dean was elected to serve on the board of this 50-year-old organization, which supports over 800 deans nationally. As part of her national efforts, she organized the Council of Historically Black Colleges of Arts & Sciences, which resulted in the most significant presence of HBCU deans at the 2022 CCAS national convention and led to other critical networking among HBCU arts & sciences deans. In 2023, Dr. Gilbert was chosen to join the Leadership Institute for a New Academy (LINA), an American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) program sponsored by the Mellon Foundation to develop the next generation of diverse academic leaders.
Dr. Gilbert will join the Department of Social Work as a full-time professor, bringing expertise in health and mental health disparities research to accelerate graduate social work programming, which she previously spearheaded.
Please join me in thanking Dr. Dorie Gilbert for her five years of service as a senior administrator at PVAMU. We look forward to her contributions as she returns to the faculty. A national search for the next Dean of the Marvin D. and June Samuel Brailsford College of Arts & Sciences will begin during the fall 2024 semester. An appointed interim dean will be announced later this summer.
Michael L. McFrazier, Interim Provost and Sr. Vice President for Academic Affairs