Antioch University Santa Barbara has announced the appointment of two new senior administrators.

Dr. Nancy Leffert has accepted the new position of provost and vice president of academic affairs. She will oversee all academic and administrative operations.

Leffert received her Ph.D. in child psychology in 1991 from the Institute of Child Development at the University of Minnesota. A nationally known researcher, author, speaker and educational administrator, Leffert specializes the individual and contextual processes contributing to the promotion of positive adolescent development. Her work has made substantial contributions to the applied dimensions of the field of youth development.

Before joining Antioch, Leffert was associate dean for program evaluation and associate dean for student services in the School of Psychology at Fielding Graduate University in Santa Barbara. There she developed an expertise in issues of institutional effectiveness, accreditation, and assessment of student outcomes. Before moving to Santa Barbara, she was a senior research scientist at Search Institute in Minneapolis, where her work was recognized nationally for its contribution to positive models of human development, and specifically in terms of understanding positive factors contributing to healthy child and adolescent development.

Steven Weir has been appointed director of marketing and enrollment management for AUSB.

Weir has been in higher education administration for more than 20 years, including senior management positions in admissions, enrollment, operations and information technology. He holds bachelor of fine arts and master of fine arts degrees from the California Institute of the Arts in Valencia. His photography work has appeared in individual and group exhibitions, including the University of Southern California and the Santa Barbara Museum of Art.

Weir comes to Antioch after five years as director of student services and enrollment management and director of special projects for the president at Phillips Graduate Institute in Encino. He has given presentations on the use of online technologies for student recruitment and effective relationship management at conferences and through webinars.

Before Phillips, he was assistant director of admissions at California Institute of the Arts and later joined the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, where as director of recruitment he created a new national and international student recruitment program. As director of admissions he designed and implemented a comprehensive computerized admissions management system. Upon promotion to VP of operations and then VP of information technologies, he was responsible for both academic and administrative computing services; as co-producer of the college web services he developed live webcasts of sponsored project presentations and campus events.

Richard Whitney has accepted a promotion to executive dean of Institutional Research at AUSB after serving for many years as academic dean. In his new post he takes charge of university and programmatic reviews and accreditations, and other special projects.