Barbara Oliver Korner
Dean Emerita
Penn State College of Arts and Architecture

Dr. Barbara O. Korner has been dean of the Penn State College of Arts and Architecture since June 2007, during which time she has overseen the development of a bustling Arts District on the northern end of campus. In March 2018, she announced that she would retire in December 2019.

A national leader in arts in higher education, Dean Korner served as co-director of the Association for Theatre in Higher Education’s (ATHE) Leadership Institute from 2000 to 2016. She co-founded the institute, which has worked with more than 250 faculty and administrators, with Mark Heckler, president of Valparaiso University. In 2016, she and Heckler were co-recipients of ATHE’s Ellen Stewart Award for Career Achievement in Academic Theatre.

Dean Korner, a Distinguished Alumna of the College of Fine Arts at Ohio University, serves on the board of the Strategic National Arts Alumni Project (SNAAP) and the executive committee of the Alliance for the Arts in Research Universities (a2ru). She previously served on the board of directors of ATHE and of the International Council of Fine Arts Deans.

Before coming to Penn State, she was associate and interim dean in the College of Fine Arts at the University of Florida. Dean Korner maintains an active role as a performing artist and is the writer and performer of Responding to the Call: African-American Women Preachers and co-editor of Hardship and Hope: Missouri Women Writing about their Lives. 

Barbara Oliver Korner
Dean Emerita
Penn State College of Arts and Architecture
[email protected]