Office Location: 503 Administration Building
Office Phone: 718-631-6604
E-Mail: ksteele@qcc.cuny.edu
Dean for Academic Affairs at Queensborough Community College, Dr. Steele has functional responsibilities for curricular affairs and curriculum monitoring, including general education and ESL (serving as Academic Affairs liaison to the curriculum committee of the Academic Senate); for course scheduling coordination and monitoring and academic facility utilization; and for new program development. She serves as Academic Affairs liaison to the curriculum committee of the Academic Senate, and serves on the College Advisory Planning Committee. Dean Steele works directly with the College President on strategic planning, and is the PMP liaison to the Chancellor’s office. She has served on a number of Middle States accreditation review teams, drawing on her experience with assessment of institutional effectiveness and student learning outcomes. She is a tenured Associate Professor in the English Department.
Born in Ohio, Dean Steele grew up in Auburn, Alabama, and graduated with a baccalaureate degree in English from Emory University. She was awarded a Danforth Graduate Fellowship. After teaching English as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Marawi City, Mindanao, the Philippines, she completed her Ph.D. in English at Brown University, writing about social change in George Eliot’s fiction. After extensive teaching experience, she came to Queensborough Community College in 1984 as an academic administrator.
At Queensborough, Dean Steele oversaw the establishment of the College’s Writing Center, the Tutorial Services program, and CSTEP; she has participated in three self-studies for Middle States; and she led the Office of Planning Research and Assessment from 1999-2001. Working with the Ad Hoc Assessment Committee, she helped develop the College’s first statement of educational objectives and the College’s individual course assessment process. She developed templates for departmental planning reports, collected and reviewed as part of the College’s annual strategic planning process. She has provided leadership both for new program development and for academic program review and re-accreditation. She has been active in the CUNY-wide general education inquiry begun in 2003, and in the implementation of many of the College’s academic initiatives.
