Holly Lynn Baumgartner, Ph.D., grew up in Fort Lauderdale and watched Nova Southeastern University (NSU) grow with the community. That connection was one of the things that attracted her to the university when the position of dean for the Halmos College of Arts and Sciences and the Guy Harvey Oceanographic Research Center (Halmos College) opened. Baumgartner stepped into the role in September 2021.
“This was coming home for me,” she said. “I’ve always admired the way NSU has been so integrated and responsive to the community. Not a lot of institutions do that as well as NSU does.”
Prior to taking the position at Halmos College, Baumgartner served as the dean of the Getty College at Ohio Northern University, and before that, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Lourdes University. She earned her bachelor’s degree in English literature and classical studies from the University of Toledo. She then earned her master’s degree and her doctoral degree from Bowling Green State University.
After years in Ohio, the prospect of being close to family turned her attention to South Florida. The breadth of the offerings at Halmos College—along with amazing students, talented faculty members, innovative programming, and cutting-edge research—drew her to NSU. She is excited to learn about new fields like conflict resolution, as well as to work with NSU’s prestigious oceanographic research center and to be a part of the thriving arts community that complements the school’s curriculum.
“We have incredible students doing incredible things—both graduate and undergraduate. The faculty members were another selling point for me. They are doing cutting-edge things for government, for community, for nonprofit research, and creative enterprises, and they’re so student focused, too,” Baumgartner said.
“I am also really proud that we have a college that provides experiential education. It’s not just lip service—we actually do that. From study-abroad to lab-based and work-based experiences, there’s not a program in this college that doesn’t offer high impact, hands-on learning experiences,” she added. “Then I can’t not say, of course, again, the research enterprise. Halmos College is one of the largest research contributors to the university brand. It has world-class research.”
Currently, Baumgartner is fine-tuning and gathering faculty input for her vision and strategic plan for Halmos College. Part of her vision includes a focus on conservation and sustainability—from working with recycled materials to studying the local geography of corals, the Everglades, and everything in between, to looking on how important these topics are within the community.
“We might be arts and sciences, but we are highly integrated in the business community. You can’t talk about the blue economy without talking about what we do in Halmos,” she noted. “My vision is that we capitalize on location, community, and business, and we bring all those pieces together.”
The focus on interdisciplinary efforts is also important to Baumgartner in terms of what she hopes to encourage academically. In her strategic plan, she wants to foster student pilot projects that tap into creativity and work to solve real-world problems, such as the health of the planet and the health of communities.
“Our students can help solve those kinds of things,” she explained. “If we’re going to change the world, we have to have all the disciplines working together.”
This approach extends to donors as well. Baumgartner hopes to develop partnerships with donors and encourage them to be involved in the process, so they can also have ownership in what they are helping the college to achieve.
“We want donors to be our college friends, our partners, our co-thinkers,” she said. “For the donors who wants to be connected and really feel they’re having the experience of seeing their funding in action, that is something we want, too.”
When asked what she would do if given a million dollars, Baumgartner had an impressive list of improvements that could be made across the college. “Given the breadth and depth of programs, for a million dollars, I could get a new research vessel for my marine sciences and create a math lab for students. I could create a music production lab to take our music program in a visionary direction, and I could set up an endowment to fund student travel and master classes across the college,” she explained.
“Right now, we’ve got students going to Ecuador in conflict resolution, going to the Galapagos in marine sciences, and going to Washington and Germany in the humanities,” she added. “That’s expensive for students, so establishing an endowment for that, as well as master classes for all of those areas where we bring in an expert from the field, can make a difference in student education. I could also set up fellowships and a special space for Council for Dialogue and Democracy students, and I could get headsets for a virtual anatomy and physiology class in biology for premedical sciences, which is our largest program. That’s a lot for a million bucks.”
As she continues to settle into her new role, Baumgartner is looking forward to also getting more involved in the community. She likes going for runs, spending time on the water, and utilizing her passion for photography. She also hopes to explore opportunities for volunteerism so she can serve the community, meet people, and spread the word about the great work being done at Halmos College. Her leadership style is to be of service to the college, and to shine the spotlight on those around her.
“For me, it’s important to get students, faculty, staff, and research scientists to find ways that they can continue to grow, be empowered, and have ownership of the college,” she said. “We can do great things if we empower our people. Halmos is not just my college. I want everybody to be able to say, ‘This is my college.’”
For more information on how to support the NSU Halmos College of Arts and Sciences, please contact Diane Klein, director of development for NSU University Advancement, at (954) 262-2171 or via email at kdiane@nova.edu.