Karen Gelles

Karen Gelles is currently the Acting Associate Provost, providing support for several student success areas including Academic Support and Access Programs, EMERGE, the Academic Advising and Information Center, and the Center for Academic Success and Tutoring.  She first joined the faculty of Farmingdale State College as a librarian in 1999, and served in a number of positions at Greenley Library, becoming Library Director in 2017.  Since then she has led a team of Library faculty and staff who embody the "students first" ethos of the College.  She served as Director of the Center for Teaching, Learning and Technology (now the Faculty Center) from 2017-2022, and as Acting Director of Distance Learning from 2022-2023.
 
A seasoned leader with deep experiences in campus governance, Gelles was the inaugural Chairperson of the Committee of Planning and Resource Allocation, the committee that has been responsible for creating the College's Strategic Plan since 2005. She has since served as Chairperson of the Planning and Budget Committee, Chairperson of the Farmingdale Executive Committee (FEC), and recently completed her second term as Farmingdale's elected Senator representative to the SUNY University Faculty Senate.  Gelles served on the College's Middle States Steering Committee for several accreditation cycles, has co-chaired the Carnegie Community Engagement Committee, and chairs the Liberal Arts and Sciences Task Force.
 
She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Music Performance and a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology, both from SUNY Geneseo, and Master of Science in Library and Information Science from Simmons College (now Simmons University). 

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