The Provost and Academic Affairs staff invite you to contact us for academic assistance.
Administrative Services building - Room 209
(320) 308-3143
Abbey Zink is the Chief Academic Officer responsible for advancing the scholarly life of the university. She works with deans, faculty, and staff, develops and administers academic policies, helps establish academic priorities, oversees the curriculum, encourages faculty and student research, supervises academic support and enrollment services, and assures compliance with system, state, regional, and federal academic and educational policies.
Ajay Panicker provides leadership, guidance and support for all matters related to faculty and student affairs within the division of Academic Affairs. He oversees various operational and contractual processes within the division that support faculty and student development. He also provides leadership to the academic deans that fosters alignment between Academic Affairs and strategic institutional commitments. Additionally, Ajay is responsible for the leadership and oversight of three divisions within Academic Affairs: Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning, Center for Holocaust and Genocide Education, and SCSU Online.
Michele Mumm provides leadership for the University in matters relating to academic program quality, institutional effectiveness, and accreditation. She is responsible for fostering a university-wide culture of continuous improvement through robust assessment. Michele leads the development and implementation of institutional and programmatic policies, strategies, and processes to ensure ongoing development and improvement of our high quality, market-relevant, and distinctive academic curricular and co-curricular programs. Michele serves as the University’s Higher Learning Commission (HLC) Accreditation Liaison Officer (ALO) and as the accreditation liaison with the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities System.
Brandon Johnson provides strategic leadership on matters relating to financial and operational strategy, planning, and budget in Academic Affairs. He develops financial systems, models, and tools that facilitate meeting divisional goals while assuring long-term sustainability. Brandon collaborates with our academic deans to foster alignment with institutional priorities; he designs academic resource policies and operational procedures. Brandon leads the development of strategic and innovative solutions to administrative challenges that rise to the level of the Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs.
Dr. William Cook provides strategic leadership for university curriculum design, database management, and policy and procedures. He oversees alignment of curriculum with academic policies, assessment and accreditation. He serves as intra-university liaison for program and course proposal development, training and approval workflow management. He works with faculty review committees across campus, and serves as system administrator for the online catalog and curriculum approval systems.
Lisa Spethmann analyzes and manages the fiscal operations for Academic Affairs and is responsible for providing oversight of operating budgets; managing the budget request, allocation, load, and maintenance processes; modeling financial impact of divisional initiatives; and using data to conduct fiscal and operational analyses across the division.
Allison Stevens provides leadership for office operational management, process development and effectiveness, and project management and support for the Provost’s Office. She also leads engaging the network of Office Administrative Specialists throughout the Division of Academic Affairs through training and development, community building and process management and improvement.
Michele Braun-Heurung supports the institutional curriculum process and serves as a liaison to the MinnState system office on matters related to curriculum. She manages the roster of programs and courses, degree maps, and content published in the St. Cloud State University online catalog. She assists with curriculum proposals, operational aspects of the curriculum approval process, curriculum database integrity, and resolving curriculum database technical issues.
Lucie Schwartzkopf provides receptionist services and clerical support for the Office of Academic Affairs.
