Scott Zeman named next provost/vice president for academic affairs

Scott C. Zeman, the dean of Biscayne College for Liberal Arts and Social Sciences at St. Thomas University in Miami Gardens, Fla., will be the next provost/vice president for academic affairs at Salve Regina, starting in July.

Zeman, a historian who teaches in Biscayne’s department of history, philosophy and global studies, will succeed Dean de la Motte, who will join the Salve Regina faculty as professor of French after having served eight years in the position of vice president for academic affairs and provost. Zeman’s appointment officially begins July 1.

“I am greatly honored to have been chosen to serve as Salve Regina’s next provost,” Zeman said. “Salve Regina is a wonderful institution with superb leadership under Sister Jane, a deep commitment to its mission, and a strong sense of community. My wife Chelsea and I were very impressed by the warmth and kindness shown to us by all of the people we met during our recent visit. We are absolutely thrilled to be joining the Salve community.”

“I look forward to welcoming Dr. Zeman into the Salve family,” said President Jane Gerety, RSM. “I believe his skill and experience will serve us well as we continue on the path to greater distinction as an academic institution in the Mercy tradition.”

Zeman earned both his doctorate and bachelor’s degree at Arizona State University, and his master’s degree at the University of New Mexico.

The 2012 “Administrator of the Year” at St. Thomas University, Zeman created and launched first-year learning communities, initiated a review of the general education curriculum and helped establish the Center for Community Engagement. He worked to expand the Institute for World Languages and Cultures, led the effort to create the university’s Quality Enhancement Plan to improve student writing across the curriculum  and developed strong partnerships with the fourth largest PK-12 school district in the nation, the Miami Dade County Public School District.

Prior to his 2011 appointment as dean at Biscayne, Zeman was associate vice president for academic affairs at New Mexico Tech. His scholarly interests are in the area of American popular culture and the history of nuclear technology, among others.

Currently in the process of writing his latest book, “Magazines and the Bomb: Inside American Popular Periodicals and the Atomic Age” (University Press of Colorado), Zeman has authored two other books, “Chronology of the American West” and “Atomic Culture: How We Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb,” which he co-edited with Michael Amundson.

He was awarded the Robert Jay Lifton Fellowship at the Center on Terrorism at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, is a William Hull Memorial Award recipient for Excellence in Teaching at Arizona State University, was named Favorite New Mexico Tech Professor by Reader’s Choice Awards, and is a past recipient of the New Mexico Tech Student Association Appreciation Award.