Inaugural Dean of the College of Graduate Studies Appointed

SDSU Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs Hector Ochoa announced that Tracy Love has been appointed to serve as the San Diego State University College of Graduate Studies dean. 

Love, director of the School of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences (SLHS), will serve the role as the inaugural dean for the college, which provides leadership and support to scholars engaged in more than 100 master’s, doctoral and advanced certificate programs. The appointment is effective July 15, 2021. 

“Through her multiple roles, Dr. Love  has been involved in all levels of graduate education including teaching key content courses, strategic planning and course development, heading admissions for SLHS’s master’s and Ph.D. programs, maintaining detailed records of student benchmarks, and participating in accreditation reports and site visits,” Ochoa said. “Love is highly valued and has made a number of significant contributions in elevating our university’s graduate programs. I look forward to working with her to continue this work in service to our graduate students and research community.” 

Love, who also directs the SDSU/UCSD Joint Doctoral Program in Language & Communicative Disorders, completed a National Institutes of Health postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Arizona’s Center for Neurogenics and Communicative Disorders and worked as a research associate in the Laboratory for Cognitive Neuroscience at the Salk Institute for Biological Sciences. 

Love also worked as a research scientist at the University of California San Diego for six years before joining the SDSU faculty in August 2005. At that time, Love also joined the doctoral faculty in the SDSU/UCSD Joint Doctoral Program in Language and Communicative Disorders (JDP-LCD). She was appointed to the JDP-LCD Executive Committee in 2012 and took over as the SDSU Director for the JDP-LCD in 2014. In 2016, she was appointed as the interim director of the School of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences (SLHS) and continues to serve as the school director to this day.

About her appointment, Love said: “I am honored to have been selected as the inaugural dean of the new College of Graduate Studies and look forward to raising the visibility of graduate education and enhancing the graduate educational experience at SDSU. Through new initiatives, I hope to build a strong foundation so that we can develop new innovative programs in support of SDSU’s goals while increasing support to students and faculty mentors. I believe a key factor for success in this position is the ability to work with colleagues across the campus and with our program partners. I am grateful for this amazing opportunity to help shape the narrative on graduate education at SDSU.” 

In her role as director of SLHS, she oversees five academic programs, three of which are highly competitive graduate programs (undergraduate, M.A. in Speech-Language Pathology, Ph.D. in Language and Communicative Disorders, Doctor of Audiology, and a post-baccalaureate SLHS leveler program through Global Campus). She also oversees on-campus clinical operations of SLHS’s two community serving clinics (Speech-Language and Audiology), both of which serve as graduate training environments and is responsible for overseeing budgets for the School and Clinics working routinely with SDSU Research Foundation to manage funds and endowments.   

Love’s experience with doctoral programming as the SDSU Director of the JDP-LCD includes responsibility for managing all aspects of the JDP-LCD doctoral program including recruitment, enrollment management, doctoral faculty recruitment, strategic planning and curriculum development, coordinating admissions across campuses, annual student reviews to ensure academic benchmarks are met, coordinating funding for incoming and existing students by applying for SDSU and UCSD fellowships, meeting with students and graduate representatives to address issues or concerns, and developing/coordinating professional workshops. She is the principal investigator for an NIH NIDCD-T32 training grant (now in its 14th year) which supports pre-doctoral training.  

Through her time in academia, Love has mentored over 200 undergraduate and graduate students through her research laboratory.   Since joining SDSU, Love has been involved in service across all levels throughout the campus affording her many opportunities to work with colleagues across programs. In 2013, she joined colleagues in SLHS and Psychology to form one of SDSU’s first Areas of Excellence, the Center for Clinical and Cognitive Neuroscience.  

Love’s service extends nationally. In addition to her service as an associate editor and as an editorial board member to numerous journals, she currently serves on the American Speech-Language Hearing Association’s Research and Scientific Affairs Committee. She is serving on NIH NIDCD’s fellowship grant review panel, institutional training grant review panel, and recently completed service as a standing member on NIH’s Communication Disorders Review Committee.  

Love has received multiple awards, including the 2019 SDSU Alumni Award for Outstanding Faculty Contributions, Outstanding Faculty of the Year, recognized by an SLHS Outstanding Undergraduate Student and by an Outstanding SLHS Graduate Student, Quest for the Best Honoree and Outstanding Graduate Advisor.   

Love earned her bachelor’s degree in psychology from Brandeis University and her master’s and doctorate degrees in cognitive psychology/neurolinguistics from UCSD.