By Allison Larrimore, Sept. 3, 2024
Terri Gomez has been officially appointed as Cal Poly Pomona’s provost and vice president for Academic Affairs, according to an announcement from University President Soraya M. Coley May 28.
Following the sudden removal of former Provost and Vice President Jennifer Brown in October, Gomez was named the interim while a committee of university staff and faculty searched for a permanent candidate. After six months of applications, interviews and forums, Coley selected Gomez to remain in her roles due to her experience in higher education.
Previous positions she held at CPP include professor in the Department of Ethnic and Women’s Studies, department chair and interim associate dean in the College of Education and Integrative Studies and associate vice president and associate provost for Student Success.
As provost and vice president for Academic Affairs, Gomez aims to continue prioritizing student success as she has been throughout her tenure at CPP.
“Student success is our North Star,” said Gomez. “We want to make sure that we’re providing opportunities for career engagement for our students from the minute they land here.”
She also plans to expand programs and support for graduate students as well as integrate emerging technology such as artificial intelligence in the classroom for both students and faculty.
“We want to make sure that every student has an opportunity to learn about these tools,” said Gomez. “We’re providing training for faculty so they can incorporate AI into their curriculum if they’d like to. Also for staff, we know that using AI can help save staff hours so they can spend their time better supporting students.”
One accomplishment she is particularly proud of is a new advising infrastructure that allows every student to have an assigned adviser with a decreased student-to-adviser ratio, so their provided services are more accessible. CPP Connect is also included in this investment, which allows students to easily make advising appointments and advisers to see their progress through a centralized note-taking system.
“You don’t have to repeat your story to 10 different people,” said Gomez. “We can see what you’ve been experiencing as a student, we can review the notes and then we’re better positioned to support you.”
Gomez also led CPP in being the first California State University to have a first-year experience program specifically for transfer students called PolyTransfer. As a former transfer student herself, she felt there wasn’t enough targeted support, so she designed the program to guide and support both incoming and current transfer students in addition to potential ones from nearby community colleges. Ten years after PolyTransfer was initially established, the university now serves three times as many transfer students, according to Gomez.
Gomez’s current roles mean that she works with the deans of each college as well as a leadership team in Academic Affairs. She shared her enthusiasm about continuing to work with them on ensuring the success of the CPP community.
“I pride myself in developing high-performing teams and empowering them to work on behalf of our students,” said Gomez. “I think we’re all very much aligned and focused on the most important issues, which are really ensuring that we have faculty success and student success.”
“I’ve worked a lot with Dr. Gomez and I found her to be very open to hearing lots of perspectives,” said Peter Hanink, a member of the search committee and assistant professor in the College of Letters, Arts and Social Sciences. “She’s certainly well-known on campus and well-respected; all of my interactions with her have been very positive.”
Hanink values her longtime dedication to academic success, especially for those who may not be the average 18-year-old, fresh-out-of-high-school graduate.
“I think everyone who looks at Dr. Gomez’s career will say a major hallmark of it is her commitment to student success,” said Hanink. “Students who are what we sometimes call ‘non-traditional students’ might have different needs and might need different kinds of advising, and I think she’s dedicated herself to that. I think that’s something really important that she’s done.”
Bharti Sharma, another member of the search committee and assistant professor in the College of Science, also expressed her faith and expectations for Gomez given her previous work.
“As a faculty member in STEM, I do a lot of work for women in STEM and for gender and racial equity, and I would like her to be supportive of those efforts,” said Sharma. “Her attention to the thriving of the people she serves is super critical, so my hope is that she will look into the collective thriving of all, especially our women of color.”
According to Sharma, Gomez is an inspiration and role model to many women of color on campus with her work in ensuring the playing field is level for everyone to thrive under her leadership. While the expectations for her are high, confidence in her ongoing work for student success and empowerment is strong and expected.
Feature image courtesy of Tom Zasadzinski
