Junius J. Gonzales

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Junius J. Gonzales is a former interim president and chief academic officer of the University of North Carolina system, and currently is the Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs at the New York Institute of Technology—ranked 7th in the nation among all private four year institutions in its category in the U.S. for enhancing social mobility, has global sites, and noted as #1 as the most diverse college/university in the country.^[1] In December 2020, Gonzales was honored as one of NY State's Responsible 100—an award given 'to an elite group of NY’s 100 most powerful executives, thought leaders, visionaries and influencers, who are setting new standards of excellence, dedication and leadership in improving their communities and making transformative change' (https://www.cityandstateny.com/articles/power-list/influentials/2020-responsible-100.html). He is a Board member for the national Association of Chief Academic Officers (https://www.acao.org/board-of-directors-page), and an invited member of the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine's Workgroup on Systemic Change in Undergraduate STEM Education. For the November 2020 annual meeting of the Council of Independent Colleges, he was an invited panelist for the closing plenary 'CAOs Respond: Our Academic Futures'. In 2019, Gonzales was an invited panelist for the Atlantic's Future of Work conference (https://www.theatlantic.com/live/future-work-2019/).

For the UNC System, he was the Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs (Chief Academic Officer) from January 2015-May 2018. While there he was selected as an ACAO Digital Fellowship, funded by the Gates Foundation. In addition to academic affairs, he oversaw research, community engagement student affairs, data and analytics, UNC TV, UNC Press, post-secondary licensure for the state, and partnerships with the K-12 sector. Some of his numerous accomplishments there include legislative funding for partway home students, a system wide degree completion improvement plan, a successful and productive system wide faculty fellowship program, a system-wide effort on math pathways, competency based education, and work on non-cognitive factors and student success in minority-serving institutions.^[2]

Prior to his time at the UNC system, Gonzales served as the Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs at the University of Texas at El Paso from 2011-2015. There he led the institution to garner several national awards (IHEP Champion of Access and Success (the only four year awardee) and Starfish 360 Student Success Award) and several grants including from a $2.3 million grant from the Department of Education for First Year Retention and Success Transition. He also led the team for a large online initiative UTEPConnect. Before UTEP, he was the founding dean of the College of Behavioral and Community Sciences at the University of South Florida, where he was initially appointed as Dean of the de la Parte Florida Mental Health Research Institute. Gonzales had served as a principal and scientist at and as Director of the Division of Services and Intervention Research at the National Institute of Mental Health as well as the Chief of the Services Research and Clinical Epidemiology Branch. He has been the recipient as principal or co-investigator on over $15 million in external research and services funding from the federal government (NIH, CDC, DOE) and foundations; and, has over 3,500 citations for published work, particularly on health disparities issues, including as a key member of a team on race and ethnicity in primary care decision making with pioneering papers.^[3][4] His work has continued with recent work on his funded research on Latinos with depression and chronic diseases with methods innovations and community partnered participatory work.^[5][6]

He has served on federal agency national advisory councils (AHRQ, SAMHSA), on the executive committee for the Council on Academic Affairs for the Association of Public and Land Grant Universities, and been a board member for numerous non-profit organizations (United Way, El Futuro, Signature Theatre, Tampa Museum of Art, Neighbors Consejo) as well as a reviewer for grant proposals for NIH, VA, AHRQ, NSF. He currently serves as a member of the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine's group on Systemic Change in Undergraduate STEM Education and has been a reviewer the last two years for the National Science Foundation.

As a first generation college student and son of poor immigrants, he holds equality of opportunity and outcomes as a core value especially in the domain of education and the need for and power of an equity mindset. Gonzales received the New York City Hispanic Chamber of Commerce Educational Excellence Award in December 2021. He also received the Academic Excellence Award from the Long Island Hispanic Chamber of Commerce ^[7] and the Diversity in Business Award from Long Island Business News.^[8] In October 2019 he received the Town of Oyster Bay Citation for Community Impact and was named Nassau County's Hispanic Education Advocate of the year.^[9]

In December 2019 Gonzales was a panelist for the Atlantic's Future of Work Conference (http://futureofwork.theatlantic.com/). He has served on many nonprofit boards including Neighbors Consejo, El Futuro, United Way (El Paso), Tampa Museum of Art, Signature Theatre, and others.^{[10][11][12][13]} He has an A.B. degree from Brown University, his M.D. with honors from the University of Pennsylvania, and his M.B.A. with honors from the University of Maryland.^[14] He completed his residency at the Massachusetts General Hospital and a post-doctoral fellowship at the National Institute of Mental Health.

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