Patricia Price, a prominent geographer and respected administrator at Queens College, has been appointed as interim provost and senior vice president for academic affairs.
Price serves as the chief academic officer of the college, reporting directly to the president. She will replace Elizabeth Field Hendrey, who has retired after 33 years of exemplary service to the college.
“Queens College is positioned at the forefront of urban-serving public institutions because of our community’s awareness of the opportunities as well as the responsibilities involved in shaping the past, present and future of the great Borough of Queens,” Price said. “I am humbled and excited to join President Wu, his leadership team, and the truly outstanding faculty, staff and students of Queens College.”
Queens College President Frank Wu said he is delighted to welcome Price and believes she adds tremendous knowledge and experience to the fulfillment of the school’s mission.
“We are an urban institution with students from extremely diverse backgrounds. We offer them a top-notch education and, for many, a path to the middle class. Our faculty, too, are diverse and committed to offering excellent teaching, mentoring and research opportunities to our students,” Wu said. “Interim Provost Price understands that our diversity is our strength. Just as important, she brings the skill set needed to develop and implement our strategic vision for the college — supporting equity, promoting innovative teaching practices and finding sustainable funding.”
Price has an impressive record of administrative and teaching accomplishments.
Beginning in 2017, she served as associate provost and assistant vice president for academic administration, faculty development and research at Baruch College/CUNY.
Her responsibilities included extensive work with faculty personnel decisions, such as coordinating tenure and promotion procedures, academic leaves and special appointments, leading faculty professional development and overseeing contract implementation, faculty workload, three-year adjunct appointments, immigration sponsorship and system-wide faculty initiatives. As Baruch’s chief research officer, she also represented faculty research at the CUNY level.
Prior to Baruch, Price was dean of academic affairs at Stella and Charles Guttman Community College/CUNY, a startup institution focused on student success. As the only academic dean, she managed oversight of partnerships, community engagement, experiential learning and budget, and developed initiatives promoting faculty scholarship, recognition and professional development.
She hired many of Guttman’s current faculty and implemented an innovative First Year Sponsor and orientation program.
Price entered administrative work with a well-established career as a scholar and teacher. A native of the Pacific Northwest, she earned a BA in business administration and an MA and Ph.D. in geography at the University of Washington, Seattle. For 19 years before her arrival in New York, she was a professor of geography at Florida International University in Miami.
An internationally recognized urban and cultural geographer, Price is known for her scholarship on Latinx neighborhood dynamics, critical geographies of race and ethnicity and diversity in higher education.
She has authored four books and numerous journal articles. Her “Dry Place: Landscapes of Belonging and Exclusion” (University of Minnesota Press) is a masterly study of the relationship between place, racialized narratives, and social identity in the desert Southwest. Her research has received substantial support from the National Science Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Price’s responsibilities encompass playing a leadership role across campus — in developing the college’s academic mission and vision, institutional policies, and strategic priorities and planning. A member of the president’s cabinet, she serves as executive officer in his absence.
Additionally, as head of the Office of Academic Affairs and Student Success, Price oversees four schools (Arts and Humanities, Mathematics and the Natural Sciences, Social Sciences and Education), the library, research and sponsored programs, honors and scholarships, the First Year Experience program, global education and international programs, and the offices of institutional effectiveness, career engagement and student advocacy and appeals.
Among her goals is the collaborative development of novel programs and practices to prepare more graduates for successful careers or advanced study.
The provost and senior vice president for academic affairs is not only oriented toward the inner workings of the college but also serves as an essential liaison to outside partners and institutions.
Price’s portfolio includes building the college’s academic reputation and impact, including recruiting and retaining talented faculty; ensuring the health of the college’s physical, financial and digital resources; maintaining accreditation; and holding all members of the college community to the highest standards of teaching, research, mentoring and student services.
Price works — together with the university’s chancellery and the college’s president, vice-presidents, deans, program directors, and faculty — on strategic planning toward increased support for faculty research, scholarships, internships, experiential learning opportunities, new pedagogical modalities, online learning, global engagement and other institutional priorities. In addition, she supports continued collaboration between Queens College and its principal community college partners and K–12 schools.
