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Suzanne McCotter named Dean of Graduate and Continuing Education

Dean Suzanne McCotter

The College of New Jersey announced today that Suzanne McCotter will begin a new role as the Dean of Graduate and Continuing Education, effective January 3, 2023. McCotter has served as dean of TCNJ’s School of Education since 2017.

Diversifying TCNJ’s offerings to learners beyond the bachelor’s degree is a key goal of the college’s updated strategic plan, TCNJ 2027: Extending Our Excellence. An essential priority of this goal is to create the institutional and programmatic structures needed to grow and support graduate and continuing education. Hiring a dean focused exclusively on post-baccalaureate education is an essential priority of this goal.  

“In this new role, I see numerous ways that TCNJ can expand its stellar reputation as New Jersey’s leader in higher education,” McCotter said. “We are not the same as anyone else now, and we will not be as we move forward with graduate programs. We will be innovative, creative, and responsive to the needs of our students by creating partnerships with external organizations and identifying gaps in the state’s current graduate landscape.”

Under her leadership, the School of Education has worked to diversify the teacher workforce, expand environmental sustainability education, and strengthen partnership with urban middle schools, among other initiatives. McCotter has also regularly offered testimony to the New Jersey Legislature on the state’s teacher shortage and diversifying the teacher pipeline. In 2021, with funding from the NJ Pandemic Relief Fund and the Overdeck Family Foundation, she led the creation of the New Jersey Tutoring Corps, a statewide program designed to meet the learning needs of K-12 students resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Across the college, McCotter led the Social Justice Taskforce, led national searches for new deans of the School of Business and School of Science, and supported numerous global initiatives for both graduate and undergraduate students. Beyond TCNJ, she is a member of the NJ Association for School Administrators, the Trenton Public Education Foundation Board, the NJ Tutoring Corps Board, and the NJ Department of Education’s Title I Committee of Practitioners.

Before joining the TCNJ community, McCotter served as the associate dean for academic affairs of the College of Education and Human Services at Montclair State University. Previously, she served as a faculty member in Montclair’s Educational Leadership Program, chair of Montclair’s Counseling and Educational Leadership Department, and chair of the Department of Educational Foundations at Millersville University.

McCotter earned her PhD in Middle School Education from the University of Georgia along with her BA and MLS from Rutgers University.Interim leadership for the School of Education is expected to be announced in the coming weeks.