Interim Provost Alison Baski takes over as CPP’s chief academic officer
By Benjamin Grover, September 29, 2026
Alison Baski, formerly dean of the College of Science, is Cal Poly Pomona’s new interim provost and vice president for academic affairs, overseeing the academic enterprise for CPP, the administration of academic resources and the coordination of academic programs.
Baski became interim provost after former CPP Provost Terri Gomez was appointed president of California State University, San Bernardino by the CSU Board of Trustees. Gomez’s appointment followed a $12 million settlement in a lawsuit involving former CSUSB President Tomás Morales and Jake Zhu, former dean at San Bernardino’s Palm Desert campus.
Baski brings 30 years of higher education experience into the provost office, serving as dean for the College of Science at CPP since 2016. Baski also served as interim dean for the College of Engineering at CPP for three years, the Don. B Huntly College of Agriculture at CPP for nine months and interim dean for the College of Humanities and Sciences at Virginia Commonwealth University for one year, prior to her move to CPP in 2016.
“Stepping up to the provost role, I have seen close to 50 departments at Cal Poly Pomona, 20 of which I had no prior experience with,” Baski said. “I’m really excited to learn about those departments because I love to learn.”
Under CPP’s new administration, lead by President Vanya Quiñones, Baski serves a leading role in accomplishing the administration’s goal of the CPP promise, which states every CPP student will have an opportunity for their first career job or to pursue higher education after graduating, said Cecilia Santiago-González, associate provost for student success.
As the vice president for academic affairs, the largest department on CPP campus, Baski will lead the division in developing strategies to coordinate internships, job opportunities and higher education accessibility to students, Santiago-González said.
Diane Gonzales, provost chief of staff and operations, said Academic Affairs is working with CPP’s College of Professional and Global Education to establish internships and job opportunities for students as well as looking into online courses to aid students in graduating in a timely manner.
In addition to collaborating with CPP’s CPGE, Academic Affairs will bring back the Career Fairs for fall 2026, featuring three separate fairs on internships, job markets and higher education, Gonzalez said.
The career fairs follow the postponement of the career fairs in fall 2025, due to customs and border patrol attending the fair as an on-site recruiter.
The reintegration of the Career Fair comes as a result of the Career Center moving under the Office of Student Success, which is overseen by Academic Affairs.
Along with the revamp of the Career Fairs, the Office of Student Success plans to utilize the Career Center more in the future to prepare students for life after graduation.
“We want to ensure that we are offering opportunities, whether it is here on campus or with the community, so every student has experiential learning,” Santiago-González said.
Santiago-González said the Career Center plans on instilling career connectedness and goal-setting mindsets within students through advisers and mentors to help grow skills and experiences to take into the job market.
Baski also highlighted the importance of gaining hands-on experiences in the classroom.
“Students need to have career-lined experiences, and we are a polytechnic, so we do this pretty well,” Baski said. “We have students doing their internships, research with faculty and study abroad. … You learn abstract lessons from these experiences that you put into your network of what you can do professionally.”
Along with hands-on experiences, Baski identified bringing different perspectives into academic disciplines, a priority that can be a factor in student success, she said.
“We’re very focused on student success, and I am very passionate about the mission here of the students because in many of our fields we want to have a more diverse group of people,” Baski said. “Differences drive innovation. You need to have different people in a room thinking about hard problems.”
