Carmen Tillery Taylor
Long Beach State University announced the selection of Northern Illinois University alumna Carmen Tillery Taylor as its new vice president for student services.
With more than 20 years of student affairs experience, Taylor joins Long Beach from Indiana State University, where she serves as vice president for student affairs and dean of students. She is expected to begin her duties around July 28.
“I am pleased to bring proven leadership to our already strong team of student services professionals. Student success is our top priority,” said President-Designate Conoley. “In Dr. Taylor we have a leader who shares this value and has a record of accomplishment in nurturing programs that make a difference in student engagement and graduation rates.”
Taylor has been at Indiana State since 2007, when she took over the job as dean of students. In 2010, she kept her dean title and added the vice president’s role, overseeing a budget of about $4 million and 12 departments serving more than 12,000 students.
“I am excited to be joining the Student Services Division at Long Beach State University,” Taylor said. “I have loved my time at Indiana State and appreciate the experiences there that have prepared me to join the dynamic leadership team at ‘The Beach.’ I look forward to greater challenges and opportunities to promote the student experience and student success.”
Taylor earned a bachelor’s of science degree in business administration, with an emphasis in finance, from NIU in 1984 before pursuing master’s and doctoral degrees in higher education student personnel from Iowa State University.
Prior to Indiana State, Taylor served as director of the student support services program at Randolph Community College in Asheboro, North Carolina, for two years; executive director of housing and resident life for the Division of Student Affairs at North Carolina A&T University in Greensboro for three years; dean of Upper-Class Campus and assistant dean for the Office of Student Development at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, for nearly five years.
She has worked at include Purdue University, Syracuse University and the University of Illinois at Chicago in various capacities.
At Long Beach, Taylor will report directly to the president and will be the administrative officer responsible for student affairs and student services operations. She will provide leadership and strategic direction in the administration of a comprehensive range of services, policies, and procedures related to student services programming and planning.
Among the many offices she will oversee are Career Development Center, Counseling and Psychological Services, Disabled Student Services, Educational Equity Services, Educational Opportunity Program, Housing and Residential Life, Judicial Affairs, Student Health Services, Student Life and Development, Testing, Evaluation and Assessment, University Outreach and School Relations and Veteran Services.
The vice president also will provide programmatic oversight of the Associated Students, Inc., the Isabel Patterson Child Development Center and the University Student Union.
A first-generation student herself, Taylor understands the mission of Education Opportunity Programs, and she once served as the principle investigator on a federal TRIO program grant. She also created a retention program for students of color, oversaw the creation of learning communities and co-educational living units and established the first 24 hour on-call housing system at a historically black college.
