Jean Ann Linney , Ph.D.
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Dean and Professor of Psychology
Jean Ann Linney was appointed Dean of the School of Social and Behavioral Sciences in August 2007. She came to UAB with twelve years of administrative experience at the department, college and university level. Most recently, Dr. Linney was vice president and associate provost at the University of Notre Dame where she had responsibility for faculty development, promotion and tenure, academic governance, and affirmative action initiatives, as well as responsibility for the Snite Museum of Art and the University of Notre Dame Press. Dr. Linney served as the chair of the psychology department at the University of South Carolina from 1997 to 2004. In 2003 she was appointed to a chaired professorship. From 1995 to 1997 she served as associate dean for Graduate Studies and Faculty Development in the College of Liberal Arts at South Carolina. She joined the South Carolina faculty in 1983 after previously teaching and conducting research at the University of Virginia and at Miami University (Ohio).
Dr. Linney's research and teaching is in the area of community psychology, prevention science, and the promotion of mental health. She has more than 60 publications including books, chapters and papers on preventive interventions with children and adolescents, environmental assessment, race relations, and the effects of selected social policies on child mental health and well being. Her most recent research evaluated empowerment and preventive interventions for adolescent and pre-adolescent girls, after-school programs for at-risk children, and preventive interventions to promote home-school connection and enhanced school readiness through Head Start.
In collaboration with the Columbia (S.C.) Urban League, she initiated “Kids College,” a prevention program addressing race relations and multicultural issues. Other work has focused on the preventive implications of social policy change, including school desegregation and policies affecting juvenile offenders.
Dr. Linney earned her bachelor's degree from Hobart and William Smith College and her master's and doctoral degrees in psychology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She has been a member of the national leadership honorary society Omicron Delta Kappa since 1998, is a past president of the Society for Community Research and Action, and is a fellow of the American Psychological Society and the American Psychological Association.
She has received numerous honors, including the Roland B. Haynes Award from the Black Psychology Graduate Student Association, the Excellence Award from the South Carolina Public-Academic Mental Health Consortium, and the Mary Modjeska Simpkins Award for Cultural Diversity for the creation of Kids College from The Children's Trust Fund of South Carolina, and the Mortar Board Award for Excellence in Teaching.
Dr. Linney serves on the editorial board of the American Journal of Community Psychology, the Journal of Community Psychology, and Clinical Child and Family Psychology, and has been very active in grant review for the National Institutes of Health.
