Allegheny College recently welcomed Celia Cook-Huffman as its new provost. Cook-Huffman expressed her excitement about taking on the role during an interview with The Campus in her office on the first floor of Bentley Hall on Friday, March 13.

“I believe in the mission and the work of what we do, and I think that’s important,” she said. “Allegheny is well-known nationally as a liberal arts institution.”

Cook-Huffman said she looks forward to fostering new programs and preparing students to be successful outside of a college environment.

She comes to Allegheny with years of experience in higher education. Most recently, she served for five-and-a-half years as the vice president of academic affairs at her alma mater, Manchester University in Indiana, which she described as being very similar to her position as provost here at Allegheny. Prior to her time at Manchester, she was the assistant provost at Juniata College, a position she took on after serving as a faculty member there for 30 years.

When the provost position opened up at Allegheny, Cook-Huffman did not hesitate to apply.

“I was just very excited when the opportunity came open,” Cook-Huffman said, “and it was a good time for me also to be in transition.”

She hopes to use her years of experience as a guide in the ever-changing world of higher education.

“It’s a really interesting moment for higher education in terms of all of the things that are happening around us,” Cook-Huffman said.

Cook-Huffman’s background is in peace and conflict studies. She taught classes at Juniata that focused on conflict resolution, negotiation, non-violent social movements and gender dynamics in conflict. She believes that her background in conflict studies was helpful not only for her as a professor, but is also a valuable skillset as she serves as provost here at Allegheny.

“My background in conflict resolution is helpful in terms of kind of thinking about how do we do our daily work together in ways that really honor what we mean in terms of our commitments about being a learning community,” Cook-Huffman said.

She pointed to her knowledge in negotiation as a valuable asset for her as a higher-up in the world of education.

“We’re always going to have differences and those are important and vital, and so we need to negotiate them together,” Cook-Huffman said. “We need to be responsive to students’ needs.”
The new provost said that during her leadership training here at Allegheny, she began to understand more about herself as an educator.

“I like to help grow things,” Cook-Huffman said. “I like developing effective processes that work for people, that are clear so that people can get their work done and we’re not creating barriers for our students or for our colleagues.”

The provost also described her passion for her work in education as one of her strengths.

“Being excited and committed, I think, is a part of the puzzle,” she said.

She hopes these strengths will enable her to help Allegheny grow and flourish.

So far, the new provost has received positive feedback from the college’s staff. Incoming Director of Undergraduate Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activities and Associate Professor of Chemistry Tim Chapp described his interactions with Cook-Huffman as positive and said he is excited to collaborate with her in the near future.

“She’s very open to all sorts of input from a variety of different stakeholders,” Chapp said. “I’ve found the process of working with her to be very collaborative.”

He described her as being an inquisitive person.

“She asks good questions,” he said.

Similarly, Professor of Economics Tomas Nonnenmacher looks forward to working with Cook-Huffman.

“The Provost is also the dean of the faculty,” Nonnenmacher explained. “The provost is in charge, in a lot of ways, of the faculty and provides a lot of guidance.”

As chair of the Business and Economics department, Nonnenmacher said he will have plenty of opportunities to collaborate with the Cook-Huffman.

Nonnenmacher noted the benefits of having someone who has worked at other institutions serving as Allegheny’s provost. During his time working for Allegheny, he has seen very fewadministrators that have been hired from outside of the school.

“It’s good for us as a campus to have some administrators who come in from outside of the college who can provide perspective from a non-Allegheny way of doing things,” Nonnenmacher said. “Having some kind of outside perspective from other schools I think is really healthy and helpful.”