Amy Falkner has been appointed as the new dean of Ithaca College’s Roy H. Park School of Communications and will begin her new position at the college Aug. 1, 2022.

In a June 9 email to the campus community, Melanie Stein, provost and senior vice president for Academic Affairs, announced that Falkner will succeed Jack Powers, professor in the Department of Media Arts, Sciences, and Studies, who has been serving as interim dean of the Park School since 2020.

Falkner has worked as a faculty member at the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University in Syracuse, New York, since 1998. She has served as acting and interim dean for two years from 2018–2020. She was named associate dean for academic affairs in 2006 and has been senior associate dean since 2012.

Falkner is an active member of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication and aided Syracuse University in finalizing its diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility (DEIA) strategic plan in the Newhouse School.

“From her early career in newspapers, through her years teaching in the classroom and conducting and presenting research, to serving for the past decade-and-a-half in academic leadership roles within a comprehensive communications education program, Amy has demonstrated the understanding and expertise that we have been seeking in our next Park School dean,” Stein stated in the email. “Her experiences and qualities will serve our current and future Park School students well in preparing them for the ongoing transformation to the realm of digital media.”

The Park School is the second of three schools to finalize its search for a new dean. The search for the School of Business has concluded, while the search for the School of Music is still ongoing.