I’m very pleased to announce the appointment of Jennifer Knack as the Interim Head of the Clarkson School. Her appointment will be effective January 11, 2020. She steps into this role as Dr. Jon Goss takes a very well earned sabbatical this coming Spring. She joins an extraordinary team who, together, will ensure our Clarkson School remains one of the very best early college programs in the country.
Dr. Knack earned her B.A. in psychology from Saint Bonaventure University and her M.S. and Ph.D. in experimental psychology with specializations in social and personality development and social psychology from the University of Texas at Arlington; she completed a post-doc at the University of Ottawa and was granted tenure at Clarkson University in 2017. Dr. Knack’s research examines the antecedents and outcomes of experiencing social stress during adolescence and emerging adulthood such as how being bullied predicts mental and physical health problems. In addition, her research is an effort to explore how to intervene and support people who experience mental and physical health problems. Currently, Dr. Knack and her research team are exploring how people detect mental health concerns such as depression on social media and what people do once they notice indicators of depression. Her research and extraordinary vision for early college education combine to ensure that, as Interim Head of School, our Clarkson School students continue to be not only professionally but personally supported.
Dr. Knack is passionate about mentoring and teaching as evidenced by her involvement in numerous mentoring and STEM education outreach programs. She is a member of the New York State Education Department STEP IMPETUS team and serves as the mentoring director for the IMPETUS Integrated Clarkson Experience (ICE) mentoring program for 10th – 12th graders in area schools. Dr. Knack is also on the School of Arts and Science tenure track faculty mentoring committee. She has been an instructor for the Project Challenge program, the SOAR Lifelong Learning in the North Country program, the Horizons program, and the Young Scholars Program. Dr. Knack is also a member of Clarkson’s NSF ADVANCE team.
Dr. Knack’s teaching includes several courses in the psychology department including Developmental Psychology, Social Psychology, Health Psychology, Introductory to Psychology, and Personality Psychology. As a leader in undergraduate mentoring she supervises students’ professional experience and research papers and mentor McNair Scholars, CSTEP students, and LSAMP students.
In her new role, Dr. Knack will take on the opportunity to maintain and grow our Clarkson School enrollment, to extend connections to honors and other co-curricular learning programs, and to advance the visibility of the Clarkson School both locally and nationally. She will work with other campus leaders to keep our Clarkson School on an upward trajectory for student success and recruitment into Clarkson’s undergraduate community. I have the utmost confidence that Dr. Knack will not only be successful in these efforts but will excel.
Please join me in congratulating Dr. Knack on her well-deserved promotion to interim Head of the Clarkson School. I and the Academic Leadership Council look forward to working with her and the entire Clarkson School team as we continue to move our university forward.
Robyn Hannigan
Provost