Amy Cook named dean at Emerson College

April 21, 2026

Dear colleagues,

Today, Emerson College announced Amy Cook as its next dean of the School of Arts and Interdisciplinary Studies. Her appointment at Emerson begins in July. Amy's impact on Stony Brook over the past 12 years has been significant, and we wish her continued success in this new opportunity.

Since Summer 2023, she has served as Vice Provost for Academic Affairs, overseeing a portfolio of several key initiatives and responsibilities. During her tenure, Amy has made improvements to the promotion and tenure process, including engaging faculty across campus in conversations about the process and improvements that have led to a more consistent and rigorous process. Under her leadership, Amy also created and supported incentive programs for the improvement and development of courses, under the umbrella of the Curriculum Innovation Accelerator. The accelerator's programs resulted in 650 new seats in high-needs courses and helped improve students' time to graduation. She spearheaded the creation of an interdisciplinary, one credit, online asynchronous pop-up course, AI and You.

As associate dean in the College of Arts and Sciences, she co-wrote the proposal for the IDEA Fellows program that expanded across the university. She also created the IDEA grad program that provided funding and professionalization experience to 12 Ph.D. candidates a year. In partnership with the Office of Civic Engagement, Amy wrote and received a Teagle Foundation/Knowledge for Freedom Grant, starting the Academy of Civic Life, a free pre-college program that brings rising seniors from Brentwood High School to campus during the summer and then works with them on college applications and community engagement projects over the course of their senior year. Prior to serving as associate dean, Amy served as chair of the Department of Art, and graduate director and artistic director in the Department of Theatre Arts.

Looking ahead to this transition this summer, it is a top priority of the Provost's Office to ensure no interruption to the service you rely upon. We will share more detail in the next week about how we will support the work in Amy's portfolio.

Please join me in thanking Amy for her leadership at Stony Brook and congratulating her on this new role.

Sincerely,

Carl

Carl W. Lejuez 

Executive Vice President and Provost