Karen Bell

Interim Dean of the School of Education

Karen Bell was appointed Interim Dean for the School of Education at the State University of New York at New Paltz 2011. Bell is responsible for overseeing four academic departments that make up the School of Education: Educational Administration, Educational Studies, Secondary Education and Elementary Education. She also oversees the Center for Academic Development and Learning and the Migrant Education Center.

The School of Education has an enrollment of almost 1,700 students. There are 40 full-time faculty and over 100 part-time faculty currently teaching at the School of Education. Bell also supervises six professional staff members and nine classified staff members.

She joined the faculty in the Department of Elementary Education in 2000, in which she taught undergraduate and graduate courses in Mathematics, Science and Technology methods of instruction. She was appointed Associate Dean in 2003, serving on the Campus-Wide Assessment Advisory Council and chairing the Coordinating Council on Assessment, a committee charged with overseeing assessment design, analysis and reporting of results and recommendations for the Professional Education Unit. She has successfully led the faculty to develop four unit-wide assessment instruments and worked with members of the Information Technology team in the design of a data management system. Through these activities, she has been involved with all aspects of assessment and accreditation, collaborating with faculty and staff across campus and the state.  In addition, she served on the Graduate Council for several years and was elected Presiding Officer of the graduate faculty in 2010.

She holds a B.A. in Special Honors Curriculum from Hunter College, a M.S. in Secondary Mathematics Education from New Paltz, and a Ph.D. in Curriculum and Instruction with an emphasis in Mathematics and Technology Education K-12 from Boston College.

She is the developer and director of the after-school program, the Numeracy Club, which provides an informal environment for teacher candidates to engage in mathematics and science activities with children. This club has become a part of the fieldwork component for the new dual certification program in Elementary Education (B-6). The project supports her research interests in the use of math games to reduce anxiety, improve attitudes and achievement, the use of children’s literature with math content, multi-sensory teaching and learning and how gender issues affect the learning of mathematics.

In an external capacity, Bell serves on the Mid-Hudson Teacher Center policy board, and is a member of the advisory boards for both the Mid-Hudson School Study Council and the SUNY Urban Teacher Education Center.

Bell resides in New Paltz.