Snow welcomes new Vice President for Academic Affairs 
(December 30, 2013)
EPHRAIM, UT - “I believe good colleges have strong major programs, but great colleges
understand and believe in their general education programs,” quoted Dr. Steve Hood
as he arrived into his new position as the Snow College Vice President of Academic
Affairs.
After an extensive interview process, Dr. Hood was selected for his ability in program
development and strategic planning while a professor of politics at the Ursinus College
in Pennsylvania. President Wyatt liked that he was consistently told that, “Dr. Hood
is an excellent teacher, creative, energetic, well respected and straightforward.”
With Dr. Hood’s innovation and leadership role, along with two other colleagues,
he lead a new freshmen program implemented at Ursinus featuring works of science,
art, social sciences, and humanities that presents the tougher questions within liberal
education such as “What does it mean to be human? and How should we live our lives?”
The program has seen great success, and in 2005 Newsweek called it “the hottest freshmen program in the country,” and was highlighted by the
Chronicle of Education and Washington Post. The program is currently being used by
Columbia University as a model of how liberal education should be taught.
Dr. Hood recognizes that there will be challenges within his new position as he tackles
the issues of faculty governance, workloads, and fiscal responsibility. Hood states,
“I am confident that working with my faculty colleagues we can find solutions to challenges
and lead future progress.”
Hood says that he is excited to join the collegiality and close-knit community of
Snow and is impressed with Snow College’s devotion to the intellectual and moral development
of students. Dr. Hood looks forward to the being apart of new academic programs, the
college’s strategic goals, and introducing of future four-year programs.
Dr. Hood was born in Provo and raised in Farmington, New Mexico. He obtained his
Bachelor and Master of Arts from BYU in political science and international relations
and went on to earn his PhD from the University of California. He has taught as a
visiting professor at the University of Lima, Peru; Tohoku Gakuin University, Sendai,
Japan; and Brigham Young University. A National Endowment for the Humanities Scholar
at Columbia University, Dr. Hood has held two Fulbright Scholarships, in Taiwan and
Peru. At Ursinus, he has received the Lindback Award for Teaching and the Laughlin
Professional Achievement Award for scholarships.
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