Valparaiso resident, psychology professor has taught at IU Northwest since 1994
The Indiana University Northwest Office of Academic Affairs announced Friday that Professor of Psychology and Women’s and Gender Studies Cynthia O’Dell, Ph.D., of Valparaiso, has been named to the position of Associate Executive Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs, effective Spring Semester 2010. 
O’Dell had served as Interim Associate Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs for the past year before being selected for the permanent position earlier this semester. She brings to the Office of Academic Affairs a long-term commitment to student learning, curriculum and faculty development.
“Cynthia brings a wide range of talents and expertise to this position that will well-benefit the campus,” said Executive Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs David Malik, Ph.D. “Her knowledge of academic affairs will help lead us to new achievements in academic programming and student success.”
O’Dell has taught psychology at IU Northwest since 1994, and she served as director of the Women’s and Gender Studies program from 2003-08. She was promoted to associate professor in 2001 and then to full professor in 2009.
O’Dell earned her B.S. in Psychology from the University of South Carolina in 1985 and her M.A. and Ph.D. in Psychobiology from Emory University in 1990 and 1993, respectively. She completed a two-year visiting assistant professor/post-doctoral appointment at IU Bloomington before joining the Department of Psychology at IU Northwest.
“Probably the main areas that the associate executive vice chancellor for academic affairs is responsible for are issues of curriculum and assessment,” O’Dell said in explaining the duties of her post. “I will be working with my colleagues across the campus to move forward with new degree programs and implement any changes that are made in our curriculum.”
O’Dell’s office is also responsible for overseeing the revision or development of assessment practices to ensure that students are learning the material set out for them in that curriculum. Other duties include development of the university’s academic bulletin and oversight of its Academic Quality Improvement (AQIP) process, which is critical to the institution’s maintenance of accreditation.
O’Dell, always a popular instructor at IU Northwest, has no intention of leaving the classroom entirely. She plans to teach a summer class this year and expects to teach one class per academic year in addition to her administrative duties.
“I wouldn’t do this job if I couldn’t also teach,” she said. “I consider teaching and learning to be central to the university’s mission. And it’s rejuvenating. I love being in the classroom and interacting with the students, and experiencing their excitement about the material.”
O’Dell has received numerous awards, including three Teaching Excellence Recognition Awards, four Trustees Teaching Awards, the IU Northwest Founders Day Teaching Award, an IU President’s Award, the IU Northwest Service Award, an award for Innovative Excellence in Teaching, Learning and Technology from the International Conference on Teaching and Learning, and a P.A. Mack Fellowship. O’Dell is also a member of the Faculty Colloquium for Excellence in Teaching (FACET).
The Academic Affairs post appealed to O’Dell, in part, because her research interests relate to student learning and assessment topics.
Her research has focused on perceptual development, specifically haptic perception and exploratory behavior in children, as well as binocular depth perception. More recently, her research (with colleague and IU Northwest Professor of Psychology Mark Hoyert, Ph.D.) has focused on achievement motivation in college-age students, including an intervention study designed to increase learning goal orientation and emphasize the incremental nature of intelligence for at-risk students in freshman-level courses. O’Dell has had more than 25 publications and 45 conference presentations in her career to date.
O’Dell’s appointment to the Academic Affairs position is a bittersweet professional success. She succeeds late Associate Professor of English and Associate Vice Chancellor Robin Hass Birky, Ph.D., who died tragically in an automobile accident near her Valparaiso home in August 2008. O’Dell and Hass Birky were close, and O’Dell has embraced the opportunity to work on projects and programs that she knows her friend would have championed, as well.
“I wish Robin were still here and still had this position,” O’Dell said. “She played a large role in developing our new general-education requirements, and she was very interested in assessment issues, as well. It’s inspirational for me to help move things forward that I know she would have thought were important.”