D’Youville Appoints Executive Vice President for Strategic Initiatives

D’Youville Appoints Executive Vice President for Strategic Initiatives

Buffalo, New York – May, 2021 – D’Youville President Lorrie Clemo, PhD, has announced the appointment of Ralph O. Mueller, PhD, as executive vice president for strategic initiatives, effective June 1. Mueller will be responsible for leading the articulation, planning, and implementation of D’Youville’s institutional priorities.

“Dr. Mueller has the ideal combination of senior academic and administrative experiences to serve as the point person for our mid- and long-term strategic goals. By coordinating across the President’s Council, Board of Trustees, faculty, and staff, he will help us to formulate critical strategies to position D’Youville as one of the top private metropolitan universities in the country,” Clemo says.

Mueller joins the D’Youville community with a 34-year career in higher education as a teacher-scholar and administrator at a broad range of public and private institutions. Currently, he is professor of education and psychology at Purdue University Northwest, a recently merged institution where he also served as inaugural provost and vice chancellor for academic affairs. Prior, Mueller was professor and dean of the University of Hartford’s College of Education, Nursing and Health Professions.

At both Purdue University Northwest and University of Hartford, he established strategic infrastructures to support faculty development, cross-disciplinary programming, and community-relevant research. A 2007/2008 Fellow of the American Council on Education, Mueller is a champion for diversity, equity, and inclusion and has extensive experience with strategic planning and resource allocation, external partnership development, and community engagement.

During a recent campus visit, Mueller reflected on his new appointment: “The opportunity to participate in shaping D’Youville’s auspicious future is very exciting. As a national Carnegie-classified ‘doctoral/professional university’ in a metropolitan area, we will be able to attract a larger and more diverse student population and top faculty scholars. Expanding cutting-edge interprofessional, multidisciplinary, but also cross-cultural offerings will strengthen D’Youville’s impact on social mobility and economic development even more, in Buffalo, across New York and the Canadian border, and beyond. I am eager to begin working with both internal and external constituents to solidify D’Youville’s trajectory toward achieving the vision set forth by President Clemo and the Board of Trustees.”

Before pursing senior administrative roles, Mueller served as professor and chair of the Department of Educational Leadership at the George Washington University. During a 16-year tenure, he became a noted quantitative research methodologist and a frequently cited contributor to the applied statistics literature. In April, Mueller and his colleagues were honored by the American Educational Research Association with the 2021 Award for Significant Contribution to Educational Measurement and Research Methodology.

Mueller earned baccalaureate and master’s degrees in mathematics from Elon University and Wake Forest University, and a PhD in educational research and evaluation from Virginia Tech. A native of Germany, he is a former Rotary Scholar and recipient of the 2017 Elon University Distinguished Alumni Award.