Meet the new dean of Santa Clara’s School of Education and Counseling Psychology.
Sabrina Zirkel began work as dean of the School of Education and Counseling Psychology in June. She comes to SCU from Mills College, in Oakland, where she served as associate dean, taught courses on race and ethnicity, and served as an advisor to the African American Regional Educational Alliance and to STEM STEPS, both programs that seek to enhance the educational experiences of African-American students. She previously taught psychology at College of the Holy Cross, a sister Jesuit school in Massachusetts, and served as a visiting fellow at Stanford University’s Research Institute for the Comparative Study of Race and Ethnicity. At SCU she looks forward to fostering development of the Thriving Neighbors Initiative and the school’s new satellite campus in East San Jose. And she welcomes the opportunity to build the school’s ExCel program (Excellence in Catholic Education and Leadership), which creates pathways for graduate students to earn both an M.A. in teaching and a California teaching credential. She takes the ECP wheel from the capable hands of interim dean Carol Ann Gittens, a professor of liberal studies, who returns to teaching in the College of Arts and Sciences.