STEVENS POINT – A leader in public higher education has been selected as the next vice chancellor for academic affairs and provost at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point, the university announced today.
La Vonne Cornell-Swanson will begin Aug. 8. The provost serves as the university’s chief academic officer, providing oversight for the university’s five colleges, more than 100 academic programs and more than 500 faculty and instructional staff members.
Cornell-Swanson comes from St. Cloud State University, Minnesota, where she has been associate provost for faculty and student affairs since 2016. Most recently, she has served as provost designee, overseeing operations in the division of academic affairs.
Cornell-Swanson has served in a variety of higher education leadership roles since 1994, including several in Wisconsin. She worked for UW System administration as director and associate professor for the office of professional and instructional development. Among strategic initiatives there, she led development of the Wisconsin Teaching Fellows and Scholars Program and the Wisconsin Task Force for Access to Success for Native American Students.
She taught social work as a faculty member at UW-Eau Claire for 15 years, where she was tenured in the department of social work and served as interdisciplinary faculty in women’s studies and American Indian studies. She also taught at UW-Whitewater, where she received her bachelor’s degree in social work. She has been active in shared governance.
At St. Cloud State, she led a process to design four accelerated graduate degree options for adult returning students. She leads its Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning and division for online and distance learning.
Advancing diversity, equity and inclusion has been a personal and professional commitment throughout her career, Cornell-Swanson said. She has worked with Native American, Latinx and Hmong communities in three states. She has led efforts to integrate DEI standards across the curriculum at St. Cloud State.
“It is an honor to join UW-Stevens Point, a dynamic university with quality faculty recognized as teacher scholars, long term history and commitment to sustainable futures and a renewed focus on active civic engagement, all qualities in a university that I am proud to serve,” Cornell-Swanson said in a news release.
Cornell-Swanson earned her doctorate in cultural and linguistic anthropology from UW-Milwaukee. She received her master’s in social work from the University of Oklahoma.
