Diana Pounder is the new dean of the College of Education at the University of Central Arkansas.
Pounder, who served previously as the chair of the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy at the University of Utah, began her new role at UCA on July 1.Pounder is an Arkansas native who earned a Bachelor’s degree in Mathematics (1971) and a Master’s of Education in Guidance and Counseling (1973) from the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville. She also holds a Ed.S. degree in Educational Administration from State University of New York-Cortland (1979) and a Ph.D. degree in Educational Administration from the University of Wisconsin-Madison (1984).
“I am delighted to join the UCA faculty and to be affiliated with a university that has such long and strong roots as an educator preparation institution,” Pounder said. “I am impressed with the commitment of the College of Education faculty to high quality educator preparation and to promote equitable educational access and outcomes for all school students.”
“We are very excited by Dr. Pounder’s arrival on campus, and we look forward to the energy, expertise, and experience as a professional educator that she brings to the leadership of UCA’s College of Education,” said UCA Provost Lance Grahn. “Her success as a teacher, researcher, and administrator at the University of Utah points to great things ahead for the College of Education, including solidifying its status as the premier college of education in the state of Arkansas.”
Pounder had been at the University of Utah since 1989, where she was a Professor of Educational Leadership and Policy, and she also served as Associate Dean for Professional Education in the College of Education from 1999 to 2004. Before that, Pounder was an Assistant Professor of Educational Administration at Louisiana State University from 1984 to 1989. Earlier in her career, she worked for 10 years in public schools as a high school math teacher, secondary guidance counselor, and middle school principal.
Pounder has earned considerable local and national recognition for her scholarship and professional service, including being among “the 50 most productive and influential scholars in the field of educational leadership nationally” included in a study published in Teachers College Record (Tschannen-Moran & Nestor-Baker, 2004). Pounder recently completed a five-year term as Editor of Educational Administration Quarterly, the leading U.S. scholarly journal in the field of Educational Administration, and is a Past-President of the University Council for Educational Administration, a national consortium of research universities with educational leadership programs. She is also Past-Secretary of the Educational Leadership Division (Division A) of the American Education Research Association.
