Logan Powell Appointed Dean of Admission

May 31, 2016

Members of the Brown Community,

I am pleased to announce the appointment of Logan Powell to serve as the Marilyn and Charles H. Doebler IV Dean of Admission at Brown, effective July 1, 2016. Powell comes to Brown from Princeton, where he has served as director of admission since 2007. As dean, Powell will report directly to the provost and will be a member of President Paxson’s Executive Committee. He succeeds Dean James M. Miller, who announced earlier this year his plan to retire.

The dean of admission is a critically important position in the University’s efforts to advance academic excellence through Building on Distinction and the Pathways to Diversity and Inclusion Action Plan. Dean Powell will serve as a strategic leader, responsible for ensuring that Brown continues to attract and support the most talented, creative, intellectually independent, driven and diverse students from across the nation and around the globe. He will oversee a staff of 38, including 19 admission officers, and will be responsible for the identification, recruitment and selection of all students seeking entrance to the College.

In this highly collaborative position, Dean Powell will work closely with students, faculty, staff and alumni to capture and convey to potential students and their families Brown’s distinctive approach to education, research and service. He will partner with University leaders--including the dean of the College, dean of financial aid, vice president for campus life and student services, President Paxson and me--to develop, implement and communicate admission priorities. He will also represent Brown on a number of professional organizations and committees, including the Ivy League Deans of Admission, the Consortium on Financing Higher Education (COFHE) Admissions Deans’ Committee, and the College Board.

Throughout his more than 20 years of experience in college admissions, Powell has demonstrated that he is both a skilled manager and an inspiring and effective leader. In his role at Princeton, he has been responsible for overall office management and operations, supervising a team of 40, and directing the budget and comprehensive application processes. He has led strategic planning to inform policy development regarding issues such as early action and standardized testing requirements, and he partnered with colleagues in the Financial Aid Office to develop strategies for low-income student outreach and enrollment. He also served on the Education Access Committee, a Presidential select committee dedicated to enhancing access and opportunity for low-income and first generation students at Princeton. Powell worked closely with Princeton’s athletic department, and has been a Princeton Faculty Athletic Fellow, serving as an advisor to student athletes.

Prior to his work at Princeton, he served as senior associate dean of admissions at Bowdoin College and senior admissions officer at Harvard. He earned his master’s in education from Harvard, with an emphasis in higher education and administration, planning and social policy, and a bachelor of arts from Bowdoin.

I am grateful to Dean of the College Maud Mandel for ably leading the dean of admission search process, and extend my thanks to all of the committee members for the time and work they devoted to identifying an exceptional pool of candidates for this important role.

It is a particularly exciting time to join the Brown community, and please join me in welcoming Logan Powell to campus as Brown’s next dean of admission.

Sincerely,

Richard M. Locke
Provost