After nearly five years of outstanding leadership and service at the UC Santa Barbara Graduate Division, Interim Anne and Michael Towbes Graduate Dean Leila J. Rupp will be ending her term at the end of June. Her successor Dr. Janine Jones, will be taking on the new title of Associate Vice Chancellor for Graduate Affairs and Anne and Michael Towbes Dean of the Graduate Division on July 1st.
"I never expected to be what I have come to call the `forever interim dean,’” said Rupp. “I thought I might do the job for a year or two, but it turned out to be a wonderful conclusion to my almost 50 years as a teacher and scholar. And I’m delighted to be handing things over to Janine Jones, who I know will be terrific.”
Jones joins the UCSB community from the University of Washington, where she is the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Professor of School Psychology in the College of Education. She is a licensed psychologist and has been a clinical supervisor in the UW School of Psychology Clinic. She has received the Black School Psychologists Network Inaugural Summit’s Legend in School Psychology Award and was inducted into the Society for the Study of School Psychology in 2021. From 2018 through 2024, she served as Vice President for Professional Affairs with the American Psychological Association: Division 16, and is an elected member of the American Psychological Association’s Board of Professional Affairs.
“I’m most looking forward to championing the incredible work of our graduate students and ensuring they have the resources, mentorship, and community they need to thrive,” said Jones. “Graduate education is the engine of innovation—not just at UCSB, but for society at large—and I’m eager to amplify its impact.”
Meeting the Challenges of Graduate Education in the 21st Century
An acclaimed historian, author, and professor of Feminist Studies at UCSB, Rupp took on the job of Interim Graduate Dean at the start of the pandemic in 2020. “Everything was remote,” she said. “I’d never even met most of the staff before—we were all learning the ways of Zoom.”
Despite the uncertainty and challenges of remote interactions during her first year, Rupp went on to welcome new cohorts of graduate students via virtual orientation, launched the Racial Justice Fellowship and Annual Symposium, hosted an entirely online Grad Slam competition, and congratulated new master’s and doctoral degree recipients via video during 2021 Commencement.
In 2022, as students, staff, and faculty were returning in-person to college campuses, a new challenge arose when over 48,000 academic workers went on strike throughout the University of California system. “I’m very glad that our graduate students won much-deserved better pay and benefits,” she said. “But that left the Graduate Division in the position of figuring out a way to increase the stipends of our most prestigious fellowships without an increase in our budget. Our most pressing needs are more fellowships and more housing.”
As she nears the end of her term, Rupp notes the significance of graduate education during these tumultuous times. “Now is the most challenging moment of all when the very existence of the university is under attack,” she said. “I think it’s so important that the wider public understand how critical graduate education is to all of our lives. Graduate students make every area of university life possible: they assist faculty members with their research and engage in their own innovative projects; they teach and mentor our undergraduate students; and they perform service on campus and beyond. Once they leave here, they take their abilities and skills and commitments and passions out into the world. Whether as faculty members in higher education, researchers in industry, teachers in public or private schools, administrators in non-profits, journalists, editors, artists, musicians—they will be meeting the challenges we face today from multiple perspectives. They are our future, and what they do is more critical than ever right now.”
Jones shares this same commitment to fostering the potential of graduate students and unlocking opportunities for the next generation of scholars—especially those from underrepresented backgrounds. “I’m deeply collaborative, and relational,” she said. “I believe in listening first, learning from a variety of perspectives, and being decisive to address needs. I’m committed to fostering an environment where every graduate student feels valued and supported in pursuing their academic and professional goals.”
Rupp is confident that her successor will have a great team and a collaborative UCSB community to support her initiatives. “I think this is the best administrative job on campus and that the staff members are amazing, committed, hard-working, and fun,” she said. “UC Santa Barbara is a very special place, and what I call our `small but mighty’ graduate population is one of the things that makes it that way.”