The Office of the Senior Vice Provost for Academic Affairs shares the bittersweet news that Lindsay Couzens, associate vice provost for academic effectiveness, will be leaving UNLV to join the Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities (NWCCU) as senior vice president. In this role, Couzens will draw on her extensive expertise to support NWCCU member institutions in their accreditation activities and contribute to NWCCU policies and practices.
A proud three-time Rebel alumna, Couzens holds a Ph.D. and M.S. in educational psychology, as well as a B.S. in early childhood education, from UNLV. For more than 24 years, she has worked tirelessly to ensure the effectiveness and continuous improvement of UNLV’s academic programs, first as a graduate assistant in the Office of Academic Assessment, and later as director of academic assessment. More recently, as the associate vice provost for academic effectiveness, Couzens oversaw UNLV’s accreditation and academic assessment efforts and served as our accreditation liaison officer to NWCCU. She and her team organized UNLV’s most recent NWCCU mid-cycle and seven-year reviews, both of which concluded with multiple commendations and no recommendations from evaluators.
Under Couzens' leadership, the academic effectiveness team supported academic departments in crafting innovative new program proposals, guided faculty through the processes of NSHE program review and discipline-specific accreditation, and consolidated and centralized numerous campus-wide surveys. She is known across campus for her thoughtful leadership, deep knowledge, and collegiality. Her flexible approach has helped to create a culture of continuous improvement at UNLV, where faculty go beyond simply “checking a box” and engage in meaningful reflection on the quality of our academic programs. For the past few months, Couzens has lent her support to institutions across the state as interim vice chancellor for Academic and Student Affairs for the Nevada System of Higher Education.
Her new leadership role at NWCCU is the culmination of years of learning, service, and meaningful contributions. She has served as an NWCCU peer evaluator for over a decade, chairing numerous site visits. As a new evaluator training facilitator and a member of NWCCU’s Mission Fulfillment Fellowship, she has helped to build a steady pipeline of expert evaluators. Couzens' combination of institutional and NWCCU experience made her a natural choice for the senior vice president role.
Though her new role will afford her opportunities to travel far and wide to NWCCU member institutions, Couzens' roots are firmly planted in the Las Vegas Valley. She, her husband Jonathan, and their two cats plan to stay local and continue to pursue their passions for all things Disney, Star Wars, and Lego. The campus community is invited to a reception on Oct. 23 from 3 p.m.-4:30 p.m in the Maryland Administrative Building 2 (MAB2) to celebrate Lindsay Couzens' contributions to UNLV and wish her well in her next chapter.
