Stetson University has named Dr. Elizabeth L. Paul provost and vice president for academic affairs. She begins work July 20, a week after the Stetson's new president, Dr. Wendy B. Libby, took office. (See photos of Dr. Libby's first day.) Paul will work closely with Libby, senior staff and the university's academic leadership on strategic planning and educational policy issues at Stetson. She will play a central role in faculty recruitment, promotion, professional development and college-wide curriculum assessment programs. The new provost was selected following a national search that drew nearly 120 candidates.

"The Council of Deans, which has led Stetson's academic program for more than a decade, and I are delighted that Dr. Beth Paul will be joining us this summer at Stetson," Libby said. "The Stetson community looks forward to having a chief academic officer enhance the Council of Deans' work on academic programs and planning across the university.

"Beth Paul has significant experience in strategic planning and in working with an institution that values academic quality and has a strong commitment to community-based service learning," Libby said.

 'Bonner Love' shines at Stetson University

A lot of young people want to change the world. The ones who gathered at Stetson University in June are actually doing so.

More than 350 Bonner students, leaders and administrators from 85 colleges and universities throughout the United States participated in the Corella and Bertram F. Bonner Foundation's 2009 Summer Leadership Institute at Stetson, the only Bonner Scholar school in Florida. The Bonner program guides young people in making the world a better place through service, leadership and collaboration with community partners to achieve policy changes.

The conference, "From Issue to Impact," included service opportunities, workshops and development sessions that focused on the conference's theme issues: environment, community/economic development, education, global issues/diversity, hunger/homelessness, youth development, and prison re-entry.

Being a Bonner is a long-term commitment that lasts through a student's college career. At Stetson, the program reflects the university's values commitment to social justice-based community engagement. Stetson has 23 scholarship funds devoted to community engagement.

Stetson has 60 Bonner students. Each semester each one devotes up to 10 hours a week to a community partner with whom he or she forms a lasting relationship. Stetson students routinely engage in academic service-learning that allows them to unite theory and practice. The combined student population of Stetson's undergraduate schools and College of Law volunteers more than 50,000 hours a year to community service.