I am happy to announce that we have selected Kim Barron as Buffalo State College’s new assistant vice president for institutional effectiveness and planning. Ms. Barron, who joined the college this week, comes to us from Metropolitan State University of Denver, where she most recently served as the associate vice president of academic effectiveness.
Ms. Barron brings 12 years of experience in higher education, eight of those in senior administrator positions within academic affairs. She has extensive experience focusing on higher education’s role serving students of color, first-generation college students, and low-income students in urban environments. She has also overseen campuswide institutional research and data-related activities that informed decisions regarding enrollment, student retention, and recruitment planning. I believe those skills—coupled with her knowledge and passion for marginalized students—will fit perfectly with the mission of the Institutional Effectiveness and Planning Office and the college as a whole.
I invite you to read more about Ms. Barron’s background in the biography below.
I would like to thank the members of the search committee and search chair, Kimberly Kline, professor of higher education administration, for their efforts and service to Buffalo State.
Lastly, please join me in thanking Eric “Luke” Krieg, professor of sociology, for his dedicated leadership in the role of interim associate vice president of institutional effectiveness and planning. Through Dr. Krieg’s leadership, Buffalo State successfully followed and assessed its strategic plan, which has enabled the institution to continually meet the quality standards of Middle States Commission of Higher Education (MSCHE) accreditation.
About Kim Barron
At Metropolitan State University of Denver, Ms. Barron served as the associate vice president of academic effectiveness and as the accreditation liaison officer to the Higher Learning Commission, beginning in 2019. She also served as the director of academic effectiveness from 2017 to 2019.
Previous leadership roles include director of institutional accreditation and assessment, accreditation liaison officer to the Higher Learning Commission, and director of the Academic Quality Improvement Program at Northern Michigan University in Marquette, Michigan, positions she held between 2013 and 2017.
From 2012 to 2013, she served as director of institutional research, director of Title III, and instructor in the Psychology Department at Silver Lake College in Manitowoc, Wisconsin.
She worked as a research associate for the Minnesota Private College Council in St. Paul, Minnesota, from 2008 to 2012 and as an educational consultant in St. Paul from 2003 to 2008. In the former role, she researched state and national trends in enrollment, retention, completion, annual giving, student loan debt, and the demographics of Minnesota’s high school students. She then prepared in-depth reports for the council president and leadership at member institutions, along with disseminating data analyses to the Minnesota Legislature, media, and numerous other stakeholders.
In her latter role, she trained teachers, prospective teachers, and school staff in effective teaching and assessment methods. She specialized in providing data to support policies for students of diverse backgrounds.
She also was employed at San José State University as a research associate for Title VII and an instructor in the Child and Adolescent Development Department.
Ms. Barron earned a master of arts in education degree in language, literacy, and policy with a specialization in second language acquisition from Stanford University’s Graduate School of Education in 1995 and a bachelor of arts in education from San José State University in 1991. She also holds TESOL certification from San José State.
