• Florida State University on Friday announced the selection of Paulette G. Curtis as the university’s new associate dean of undergraduate studies 
• Curtis will also be tasked with running Florida State’s Honors Program
• Curtis holds administrative experience from Ohio State University, Notre Dame, and Harvard, and aims to boost Florida State’s statewide and national profile in research 

Paulette G. Curtis, who previously served in administrative roles at Ohio State University, Notre Dame, and Harvard University, has been named associate dean of Undergraduate Studies and director of the Honors Program at Florida State University (FSU), according to a university release.

Curtis holds more than two decades of university administrative experience. Her prior roles include assistant dean and interim associate dean of academic affairs in Ohio State’s College of Education and Human Ecology and faculty director in the Office of Pre-College Programs at Notre Dame, according to Curtis’ LinkedIn profile.

“I am so excited to welcome Dr. Curtis to Florida State University. She is an impressive leader with a deep commitment to our mission of helping talented, ambitious undergraduates reach their full potential,” said Joe O’Shea, FSU’s associate provost and dean of undergraduate studies. “I am confident she will continue to develop our Honors Program into one of the finest in the nation, and I’m grateful to the search committee for helping to recruit such an outstanding candidate.”

Curtis will also take over Director responsibilities for FSU’s Honors Program. The university describes its honors consortium as a community of high-achieving students dedicated to academic and campus success. Curtis also was in charge of the honors program at Ohio State.

“I’m truly excited,” she said. “It’s clear that Florida State’s moving in an exciting direction, and I got a good understanding from Dean O’Shea, Provost Jim Clark, and the team that they’re very invested in the work that they do to support undergraduates, and that makes me excited to be a part of the FSU team.”

Curtis also will help support FSU’s Presidential Scholars Program, per FSU, which awards the university’s premier undergraduate merit scholarship.

Curtis holds an immediate ambition to build on the Honors Program through additional courses and co-curricular activities, as well as raising the local and national profile of the program in order to grow FSU’s public research ranking.

“I think it’s going to be important to create more community in what you might call the ‘honors family,’” Curtis said. “I think such programs often can become very siloed and insular. You want to build community and serve the students who are a part of a community and your unit. I also think Honors can play an important role in making the campus richer and more robust in various ways.”