Dean's Office
Geoffrey Chase, Ph.D.
Dean, Division of Undergraduate Studies
Dr. Geoffrey Chase, the Dean of Undergraduate Studies and the Director of the Center for Regional Sustainability at San Diego State University, attended Ohio Wesleyan University, where he received the BA in English in 1971. He also holds an MAT from Miami University (Ohio) and the AM in English from Boston College. After receiving his PhD in American literature from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1981, he taught for 11 years in the School of Interdisciplinary Studies at Miami University of Ohio. While at Miami, he served as a Fulbright Scholar in Turku, Finland (1990-1991).
Dr. Chase joined Northern Arizona University in 1992 as the Director of English Composition. While at Northern Arizona University, Chase also served as English Department Chair, Dean of Liberal Studies, and as the Associate Provost for Undergraduate Studies. At NAU, he revamped the composition curriculum to give it an environmental focus and became a leader of the Ponderosa Project, a faculty development project aimed at helping faculty from throughout the university integrate issues of environmental sustainability into their courses. The Ponderosa Project has become a model faculty development project that has been introduced to faculty on more than 175 campuses in the United States and Canada.
In 2004 he co-edited, with Peggy Barlett, Sustainability on Campus: Stories and Strategies for Change, which was published by MIT Press. He currently serves as Board Chair for the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE). He has also served on the Executive Committee for the American Conference of Academic Deans (ACAD), as Co-Chair for the Proposal Review Committee for the Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC), and has served as team chair for accreditation teams. Dr. Chase lectures widely on sustainability in higher education and, with Peggy Barlett, offers workshops on institutional change, curriculum, and sustainability.
