News Release

Barbara Sims named Academic Leadership Program Fellow

May 16, 2008

Penn State Harrisburg Associate Professor of Criminal Justice Barbara A. Sims is one of only five University faculty members to be named a Fellow of the Committee on Institutional Cooperation’s Academic Leadership Program.

The CIC is the academic consortium of the Big Ten universities plus the University of Chicago.

Through its leadership program, participants who have demonstrated exceptional ability and administrative promise are aided in further developing their leadership and managerial skills. Those selected from Penn State for the 2008-09 program have been chosen because of their significant contributions and potential to undertake leadership responsibilities at the University.

In addition to Dr. Sims, Penn State participants for 2008-09 are:

Lee D. Coraor, associate professor of computer science and engineering, and 2008-09 chair-elect of the University Faculty Senate, College of Engineering;

Colleen Toomey Lieberman, Administrative Fellow to the executive vice president and provost and assistant dean for policy and planning, The Dickinson School of Law;

Timothy W. Simpson, professor of mechanical and industrial engineering and engineering design, College of Engineering; and

Marica S. Tacconi, director of the Institute for the arts and Humanities and associate professor of musicology, College of Arts and Architecture.

The Academic Leadership Program involves Fellows in a series of three, two-day seminars plus readings and participation in related activities on their home campuses between seminars. The program is significantly geared toward answering the challenges on academic administration at major research universities.

A faculty member in Penn State Harrisburg’s School of Public Affairs since 1997 and chair of its undergraduate and graduate programs in Criminal Justice, Dr. Sims has been honored by the University and college for her teaching, research, and service to the external community.

In 2007, she was presented the University–wide Award for Faculty Outreach and in 2006 the Penn State Harrisburg Award for Excellence in Teaching. She also played an indispensible role as the coordinator of the college’s undergraduate major in Criminal Justice available through the University’s World Campus.

Her research efforts have ranged from working to understand the nature of school-based gang activity to assessing the nature of prescription drug coverage for Pennsylvania’s senior citizens. She has worked with the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency to develop a "weed and seed" conference to address crime prevention, as an adviser to the Pennsylvania Sex Offender Management Team, and with the Lebanon County Crime Commission to survey citizens and police officers.