Trine VP in leadership program

Selected from national educators

May 7, 2010--Trine University Vice President for Academic Affairs Dr. David Finley is one of 25 chief academic officers nationwide selected to participate in the seminar “Leadership for the 21st Century for Chief Academic Officers” July 12–16 in Annapolis, Md.

This leadership program develops perspectives and skills of chief academic officers that can lead to success in unpredictable times. The program is offered by the Council of Independent Colleges, a national association of more than 600 independent, liberal arts colleges and universities, and the American Academic Leadership Institute, which provides leadership identification and development programs across all sectors of public and private higher education. 

The seminar will center upon “Administrative Wisdom for Chief Academic Officers: Classic and Contemporary Readings on Leadership and Responsibility,” led by John Churchill, secretary of the Phi Beta Kappa Society. Educated at Rhodes College, the University of Oxford and Yale University, Churchill brings years in the small college classroom, decades of senior academic administration and eight years at the helm of the nation’s oldest academic honorary society to the seminar. “I relish the prospect of engaging these texts and these issues with academic leaders,” he said. 

Participants will examine key issues of leadership and responsibility and engage with colleagues in a substantive exploration of the issues facing academic leaders today.

Dr. Finley joined Tri-State University, now Trine, as an assistant professor of chemical engineering in 1996. Since then, he has chaired the McKetta Department of Chemical & Bioprocess Engineering and served as dean of the Allen School of Engineering & Technology. Now a full professor, he became Vice President for Academic Affairs in 2004.

Finley has authored a number of scholarly articles and made presentations at higher education conferences across the country. With over 20 years of experience in environmental research and planning, he is also the author or co-author of 38 additional reports that required analysis of impacts of industrial activities on the natural environment.

Finley earned bachelor and master degrees in atmospheric science at University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and a doctoral degree in chemical engineering at Wayne State University in Detroit.