Newsroom

Kenyon Chan Named Vice President for Academic Affairs

Selected after a national search, Chan, 54, was founding chair of the Asian American Studies Department and director of the Liberal Studies Program at Cal State Northridge before becoming dean at LMU in 1998. A professor of psychology, he is a nationally recognized authority on the effects of race on the emotional development of children who has served as a consultant to organizations ranging from the National Science Foundation to “Sesame Street.”

“I couldn’t be more delighted that we were able to lure Kenyon to Eagle Rock to take this critical post,” said Occidental President Theodore R. Mitchell. “His passion for undergraduate education, his wide-ranging experience as an administrator, his distinguished record of academic achievement, and his impressive skills as a leader made him the best choice to serve as Occidental’s chief academic officer.”

As dean of LMU’s Bellarmine College, Chan’s responsibilities included supervision of all teaching and research, development and evaluation of the curriculum, fundraising and budgeting, and faculty and student recruitment. During his four years at LMU, he supervised the move of the college to new facilities, developed a new undergraduate research fellowship program, encouraged the use of new technologies in the classroom, and headed efforts to better serve undeclared and transfer students.

Chan received his bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees from UCLA (in sociology, special education, and educational psychology, respectively) and was a post-doctoral fellow in clinical psychology at Children’s Hospital-USC. He served on the faculty of the then-Graduate School of Education at UCLA and as a member of the clinical faculty at Santa Monica Hospital-UCLA before accepting an appointment at Cal State Northridge in 1990. While at Northridge, he also headed a comprehensive review of the university’s general education program.

Off-campus, Chan is a member of the Accrediting Commission for Senior Colleges and Universities and has served as a board member of the American Conference of Academic Deans, president of the Association for Asian American Studies, as a member of the Fox Children’s Network Board of Advisors, and as a consultant to the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Founded in 1887, Occidental is one of the few nationally recognized, residential liberal arts colleges in an urban setting. A leader in intercultural, interdisciplinary education, Occidental draws its 1,800 students from around the world with a superb faculty and challenging curriculum that emphasizes critical thinking.