Dear Colleagues,
I am writing to share the news that Janeen Hill, founding dean of Crean College of Health and Behavioral Sciences, is stepping down as dean, as planned, on July 31, 2026. She intends to go on sabbatical immediately thereafter and then return as a special strategic adviser to the Office of the Provost. Laura Glynn, professor of psychology and associate dean for research in Crean College who has earned great respect in the college and across the university, will step in as interim dean on Aug. 1.
Janeen has dedicated her career to advancing the study and practice of the health sciences. Before joining Chapman as an assistant professor in 1997, she was a research scientist in cardiovascular medicine at the University of California Davis. She was promoted to full professor in 2006 and has served several important roles, including president of the Faculty Senate.
She has assumed increasingly complex leadership positions while at Chapman, including chair of biology, interim dean of Schmid College of Science and Technology and, ultimately, the inaugural dean of Crean College. Since Crean’s creation in 2014, Janeen has led efforts to grow its research enterprise and its teaching and learning mission. Today, the college is the second-largest at Chapman and offers many highly successful and prestigious undergraduate and graduate programs.
Janeen’s distinguished career at Chapman is punctuated by three of her proudest achievements:
- Serving as chair of the search committee that selected now-President Emeritus Daniele Struppa as provost in 2006. The selection has proven to have profound and enduring benefits for the university.
- Identifying the opportunity to create a new college focusing on health science professions that could stand on its own and leverage emerging trends and needs in healthcare – including the impacts of a rapidly aging population – locally and more broadly.
- Creating a significant presence in the Orange County community to address unmet healthcare needs that benefit patients who are un- or under-insured while providing our students with hands-on clinical experiences. She and her team have helped to launch numerous community outreach programs that serve the needs of patients recovering from strokes and concussions and those living with Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s diseases.
Janeen’s vision for the role of graduate health professional programs in meeting the healthcare demands of the region and state contributed to Chapman’s expansion to a second campus in Irvine: the Harry and Diane Rinker Health Science campus. This campus is home to Crean’s Physical Therapy, Physician Assistant, and Communication Sciences and Disorders graduate programs, as well as our School of Pharmacy.
Among Janeen’s other notable accomplishments, she served on Chapman’s COVID-19 task force, providing strong counsel and helping to reopen the Rinker campus to teach graduate health professional students – an essential step in maintaining the future healthcare workforce. She has been named an OC50 leader by the Orange County Business Journal and, most recently, she provided guidance for the healthcare panel and accompanying poster session that enriched the presidential inauguration in October.
Janeen received bachelor of arts and master of science degrees from the University of Utah. She completed her Ph.D. in exercise physiology at the University of New Mexico and a post-doctoral research fellowship at the UC Davis School of Medicine. She is a member of Phi Beta Kappa.
Please join me in offering appreciation to Janeen for her leadership and vision, and we will plan to celebrate her at an appropriate time. I also want to thank Laura for her support and leadership as we launch a national search in 2026.
Mika Ibba
EVP, Provost, and Chief Academic Officer