Maples, Wittmeyer Appointed Interim Deans
St. John Fisher College has announced the appointments of Dr. Joellen Maples to continue as interim dean of the Ralph C. Wilson, Jr. School of Education and Dr. Carol Wittmeyer as interim dean of the School of Business for the 2020-2021 academic year.
Maples has served in the interim dean role since January of this year, taking the reins while then dean, Dr. Michael Wischnowski, went on sabbatical ahead of his retirement. Wittmeyer has served as the associate interim dean of the School of Business for the last year.
Prior to her appointment as interim dean, Maples served as an associate professor in the Department of Inclusive Education at Fisher, where she has worked since 2008. She provides numerous trainings in local school districts in the areas of culturally responsive teaching, critical literacy, and online teaching and learning. During her time at the College, she has been the recipient of the Dr. Mark Szarejko Faculty Information Literacy Award and the New York State English Council Educator of Excellence Award at the College Level. In addition, she has been a member of the Walden Award Committee for the Assembly on Literature for Adolescents of NCTE, and has acquired numerous grants which include a six year Mentoring Matters grant to work with middle school students in the Rochester City School District.
Finally, she has published in prominent NCTE journals such as Voices from the Middle, The English Journal, and English Leadership Quarterly.
Maples earned a B.A. in English in 1995, an M.A. in curriculum and instruction in 1996, an Ed.S. in English education in 1998, and her Ph.D. in English education in 2008 from the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, Tennessee. She taught English, language arts, creative writing, and reading at the middle and high school levels for 11 years. Her research interests include exploring effective strategies for facilitating democratic dialogue and critical literacy through the reading of young adult literature and online discussion about literature.
Wittmeyer joined Fisher in 2018 serving as a visiting associate professor and launching the College’s Family Business Initiative. She is a Smith Family Business Fellow at Cornell University and a faculty member for Loyola University Chicago’s Family Business Center. Previously, she was a faculty member at St. Bonaventure University, where she taught management and founded and advised the Family Business Club. Wittmeyer was tenured in both business and education and served as interim dean of the School of Education from 1994-1996.
In addition, Wittmeyer served as president and board member of the George and Robin Raymond Family Business Institute, a family foundation dedicated to supporting family business housed at Alfred University. Prior to that she served as associate vice president for advancement at Alfred University, managing The New Millennial Campaign, which raised $82 million.
She earned an MBA and BBA in accounting from St. Bonaventure University, and an Ed.D. in Educational Administration from the University of Rochester. She has also earned certificates from Harvard’s Negotiations and Management Programs, Wharton’s Strategy Program, and has an International Business Certificate from the Beijing Institute of Technology. She is certified in online teaching from KeyPath and the Sloan Foundation.