Meet Dr. Cheryl Wilson

Photo Credit: John Butler, OW

Dr. Cheryl Wilson began her role as SUNY Old Westbury’s new Dean of the School of Arts and Sciences in July of 2022. Originally from West Islip, Suffolk County, Wilson accepted this position with a desire to return to Long Island and elevate herself to the next level of her professional career.

Wilson graduated from SUNY Geneseo with a Bachelor’s Degree in English. Afterwards, she earned her Master’s Degree and Ph.D. in English Literature from the University of Delaware.

Wilson’s passion for travel took her across the country and globe. While attending SUNY Geneseo, Wilson studied abroad in London. As she traveled, she gained “a much greater appreciation of places, certainly of the advantage of living close to [her] family.” Along with traveling and planning trips, Wilson enjoys baking, reading, and learning about wine. She also likes to spend quality time with her family and friends.

In her years as an undergraduate student, she minored in dance. She said, “that really shaped my academic career.” An English professor at the time, Dr. Celia Easton, inspired Wilson to combine her interest in dance with material relating to novelist, Jane Austen. She credits Dr. Easton with inspiring her academic and professional path. Wilson said, “it also really kind of helped me understand the work I could do as a faculty member with encouraging and exciting students.”

Wilson dove into Austen’s works and explored the intimacy of dance in the early 19th century. In this time period, people would dance together rather than go on dates to see if they were a good match. Wilson’s first published article and her doctoral dissertation, “Literature & Dance in Nineteenth Century Britain,” focused on this topic.

Her background in dance and her participation in Stevenson University and SUNY Geneseo’s theater programs have given her a solid creative foundation to help dance students. Wilson even choreographed musicals at both institutions.

Although the dean position at Old Westbury does not have nearly as much daily student contact as a professor does, Dr. Wilson welcomes the idea of helping out with on-campus clubs and organizations as a way of providing more student interaction.

Wilson accepted her first faculty role at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. After working there for five years, she accepted a position at the University of Baltimore. There, she worked on the University’s General Education Committee, sat on the Accreditation Committee, and became the Department Chair of the Klein Family School of Communications Design. She soon realized that she wanted an administrative role.

Wilson took her expertise to Stevenson University in Maryland, where she worked as the Dean of Humanities and Social Sciences for six years and was appointed Vice Provost for Academic Affairs. When the opportunity arose to become the Dean of the School of Arts and Sciences at SUNY Old Westbury, Dr. Wilson applied and accepted the position.

As the dean, Wilson works with her assistant dean, Betty Berbari, and their assistant, Anne Marie Jimenez. Besides collaborating with her team, she also works with the twelve academic department chairs within the school.

SUNY Old Westbury has a faculty governance system in which the faculty members drive decisions. Wilson supports some of these decisions, such as the creation of new courses and programs, helps bring them into action, and offers opinions and recommendations. Another one of her functions is to create partnerships between departments.

Wilson also manages the budget for the School of Arts and Sciences and meets with the twelve department chairs to discuss the budget and the allocation of resources.

Dr. Wilson enjoys working with her colleagues. She said, “I'm a big fan of the ‘rising tide floats all boats theory’ and what can we do to raise up the whole School of Arts and Sciences and by extension the whole institution, the whole college when we work together as opposed to everybody kind of doing their own thing.”

While Wilson values collaboration, sometimes, she needs to make decisions by herself. She said, “There are things that I need to sit in my office by myself and make decisions about when it comes to personnel matters, when it comes to kind of really emergent or sensitive situations with students, sometimes things like that are not necessarily things that should be shared….”

Coming into her new position, Dr. Cheryl Wilson has set personal goals, such as meeting with the faculty of the School of Arts and Sciences on a one-to-one basis. She wants to learn their needs and interests to best support their departments and the institution as a whole. Wilson hopes to learn as much as she can about the SUNY Old Westbury community and academic life so that she “can make sure [she is] making good decisions and informed decisions.”

Dr. Wilson said that she hopes to ensure “that the School of Arts and Sciences is really functioning as a unit” and that the school acts as “a good steward of liberal arts education at Old Westbury.” She emphasized the importance of a relevant and an up-to-date education system that will prepare students for life after graduation.

Dr. Llana Barber, the American Studies Department Chair at SUNY Old Westbury, said, “one of the things that most strikes me about [Dr. Wilson], makes me most optimistic for her leadership, is that she's an incredible listener. She genuinely wants to get to know students and faculty, and she's working really hard to draw people out and to learn from them and to learn about the college.”

Written for SUNY Old Westbury's student-run newspaper, the Catalyst