Wagner College is proud to announce the appointment of Kevin Bott, Ph.D., as its new dean for civic engagement, effective Aug. 15.
Since 2010, Bott has been a staff leader in Imagining America, an organization dedicated to the support of artists and scholars in public life.
Bott will lead Wagner’s Center for Leadership and Community Engagement, spearheading the college’s mission of educating what it calls “civic professionals.” Among his many responsibilities, Bott will provide support for Wagner’s alliance with community organizations, the Port Richmond Partnership, a coalition with which he is already intimately familiar.
Since 2013, Bott has worked closely with Wagner College and residents of Port Richmond to help develop Sound of Port Richmond, a community-based theater company dedicated to addressing local issues. In July 2015, Sound of Port Richmond created and performed “Every Time You See Me,” a meditation about race, class and privilege on Staten Island.
“I couldn’t be more excited about joining the Wagner College and Staten Island community in a more formal role,” Bott said. “Through my work with Imagining America, I have long been an admirer of Wagner’s leadership in the field of civic engagement. The college is recognized as a national model for connecting community and campus resources to make real, positive impact in people’s lives.
“I think that coming into this new dean’s position already having such meaningful relationships with people on campus and in the community will allow me to hit the ground running and continue to build on the great work happening here.”
The position of dean for civic engagement is, indeed, a new one for Wagner College, replacing the existing director’s position for the Center for Leadership and Community Engagement. The search for a dean began earlier this year, when CLCE Director Samantha Siegel announced that she would be leaving Wagner College. A national search committee was formed, headed by President Richard Guarasci and Provost Lily McNair and composed of professors Margarita Sanchez, Sarah Donovan and Bernadette Ludwig. The committee considered applications submitted by approximately 50 candidates from across the country, and met with Wagner faculty members, students, senior administrators and staff as well as the college’s community partners as it worked its way toward a decision.
About Kevin Bott
Kevin Bott has trained and worked as a theater artist for over 30 years, and he is a scholar and facilitator of grassroots and community-based performance. For the past 6 years, he has been associate director and director of cultural organizing for Imagining America. In addition to consulting nationally with IA member institutions and partners about engaged art and scholarship initiatives, Bott has led IA’s annual cultural organizing institutes and national conferences since 2009. He is the founding artistic director of IA’s community performance project in Syracuse, New York, The D.R.E.A.M. Freedom Revival, a participatory musical theater experience intended to engage audiences in dialogue about local civic issues.
Bott’s doctoral dissertation, “A Ritual for Return: Investigating the Process of Creating an Original Rite of Passage with Formerly Incarcerated Men,” examined the ethical challenges he confronted while creating a theatrical rite of passage among a group of men transitioning from incarceration to freedom.
Bott is the former director of education for Rehabilitation Through the Arts, a New York State prison-arts nonprofit, and he facilitated arts workshops and original theater productions in various New York State prisons from 2006 to 2008.
Bott earned a B.A. from Rutgers University, and his master’s and doctoral degrees from New York University. He is married with 2 sons.