Biography of Dean Joyce Feucht-Haviar

• The combination of the approach to program development and comprehensive student support has allowed CSUN’s programs offered through the Tseng College to each achieve an on-time graduation rate ranging from 70% to 100% in under three years which is well above the national average and is achieved at a much faster pace. In addition, those graduating from programs that require both the degree and passing a licensure test to practice in the field in question exceed the national rate of passing such licensure exams on the first attempt consistently, with some groups achieving a 100% pass rate on the first attempt.
• Developed a distinctive approach to online program development and support with its foundation in instructional design and research and testing of continuously changing educational technology options. Instructional designers work individually with faculty teaching in an online program to ensure that each course benefits both from the unique instructional style and scholarly focus of a given faculty member as well as best practices in instructional design for fully online programs. CSUN’s fully online programs developed and supported in this way have high on-time graduation rates and a growing number of national recognitions and rankings.
• Expanded CSUN’s engagement in regional and national initiatives and studies related to talent development and the education of the university-prepared workforce essential to the economic future of the Greater Los Angeles urban region and California. It opened the way for CSUN to play a lead role regionally in shaping the future of the Creative Economy.
• Developed in the College an information systems and services capacity that was able to lead and support a fundamental shift in the College’s use of changing technologies in all aspects of its work. In addition to the technologies used to provide a high level of agile and responsive services to students and partners/clients, the College has become quite advanced in its use of data systems and data analytics to inform its work and its ability to reach and support students.
• Implemented a fully transparent approach to financial reporting and outcomes sharing that is presented in a yearly report pushed out to CSU peer leaders and CSUN leaders at a wide range of levels. It is also available to all on the College’s website.
• Since assuming the role of dean, more than quadrupled the yearly revenue of the Tseng College and implemented a much more comprehensive approach to sharing such revenue with partner colleges and also pushing for compensation to faculty who work with the Tseng College to develop and teach the distinctive programs that lead to the success of CSUN students in CSUN’s self-support programs. Managed the Tseng College’s funds well enough to fund the building of the CSU’s first academic building (academic administrative offices, meeting spaces, and classrooms – the CSUN Extended University Commons building), built without debt/bonds/loans while returning about half of each year’s gross revenue to the CSUN economy via instructional and program development pay to CSUN faculty, reimbursement of General Fund units for services, and revenue share for partner colleges/departments.
• Developed a fully engaged approach to the Tseng College’s work with all other academic colleges and departments, as well as CSUN divisions and administrative units. The College now is proactive in its support of CSUN’s overall success and finding ways to help other components of CSUN to achieve their goals.

International Initiatives:

• Developed an educational relationship in Oman that led to the collaborative curriculum development for a then-new university in Oman (Al Buraimi University College) based on the CSUN curricula in several fields. CSUN faculty and Tseng College leadership work with Oman's faculty to craft and evolve the curriculum, instructional strategies, assessment, and administrative best practices. The institution is now 20 years old and enrolls over 2,000 students, of which the majority are women.
• Developed a new and rather unique educational relationship with the American University of Bahrain (AUBH) in 2020/2021 that fully aligns the curriculum of AUBH with CSUN’s curriculum in general education and selected majors. This alignment opens many opportunities for faculty and student collaboration and shared learning between the two universities. It also gives AUBH students a chance to transfer to CSUN seamlessly if they wish to do so.
• Has responsibility for the evolution of CSUN’s work on a wide range of new international agreements and the exploration of new options for global connections that are structured to serve CSUN students.
• Created and chairs CSUN’s International Coordinating Council, which brings together the leaders of all CSUN’s international work across college and divisional lines to foster collaboration, purposeful planning, and agile responses to new opportunities.
• Created CSUN’s International Education Council which comprises CSUN faculty who gather and consider ways in which CSUN’s curriculum can best evolve in light of CSUN’s highly diverse students and the changing global context.

Dean Joyce has served/serves on a number of university, state, and national higher education and economic development committees and commissions. She is regularly at regional and national seminars and conferences on leadership, organizational change and development, the future of higher education, and innovative program development. 

DeanJoyce regularly explores ways in which CSUN and the Tseng College can respond to both challenges and opportunities such as, of late, the need for CSUN to find/develop more responsive ways to address the issue of degree completion for those who stopped their university education before earning their degree; and the changing educational needs of students across their career span and the development of modular degrees that might better respond to the changes. She was also awarded Woman of the Year for Education by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors Commission on Women in Leadership in 2013.

Before assuming her current role, Dean Joyce served as associate dean for academic affairs for continuing education at the University of Virginia. Prior to that, she served as director of liberal studies programs and then associate executive director of continuing education at the University of Chicago. She earned her undergraduate degree at Ohio University (a BFA in painting and ceramic sculpture, along with a teaching credential and participating in the honors program). Her graduate degree at the University of Chicago focused on how people make and use ideas. As her work in higher education evolved, she took additional courses relevant to her changing roles and sense of options and innovative possibilities: from the University of Chicago, in marketing and management; from the University of Virginia, in learning theory, instructional design/course development and assessment, and faculty careers in higher education; and at UCLA, in higher education administrative structures and organization, faculty development across the career span, and higher education management. Overall, she finds every conversation a source of new insights, she spends more than the average amount of time “wondering,” and is inclined to be a bit “disruptive.”