Ithaca College Names Stanley Bazile as Vice President for Student Affairs and Campus Life

By Dave Maley, April 4, 2024
Experienced higher education scholar-practitioner will join the college on June 10.
man wearing blue suit and yellow tie

Ithaca College President La Jerne Terry Cornish has announced the appointment of Stanley Bazile to serve as the college’s next Vice President for Student Affairs and Campus Life. Currently the Vice President for Student Affairs and Dean of Students at St. Francis College in Brooklyn, New York, he will join IC on June 10.

“Stanley’s values and experience align with Ithaca College’s belief that academic excellence, respect, accountability, innovation, sustainability, and equity are critical factors to students realizing their full potential,” said Cornish. “I am excited to welcome him to the IC community and look forward to both the knowledge and the collaborative approach he will bring to our critical work in helping to ensure student well-being and success.”

Bazile will be responsible for providing leadership and strategic direction to more than 100 professional staff and over 450 student employees in advancing programs, activities, and services that enhance opportunities for student engagement, leadership, and success. He will support the development of curricular and co-curricular community partnerships and activities and work collaboratively with the Provost and the Associate Vice President/Chief Human Resources Officer to advance the college’s goals of equity, inclusion, and belonging.

At St. Francis, where he also served as interim Chief Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Officer, Bazile’s accomplishments have included restructuring the student affairs division to most effectively respond to and anticipate student/campus demands; collaborating with academic affairs to create a cross-divisional Student Success and Retention Taskforce charged with creating strategies and making recommendations to close the achievement gap between underrepresented minority and non-marginalized student populations; and helping lead the institution through the challenges of the COVID pandemic and the return of students, faculty, and staff to campus after 17 months of remote learning.

“With a strong belief that social and academic integration are essential in student retention, I look forward to bringing my experience and expertise to assist Ithaca College with providing a rich and fulfilling education for students.”

Stanley Bazile

“I consider a truly effective student-centered organization to be one that recognizes an individual’s life journey, acknowledges the realities of a student’s daily routine and the current state of the world, and then places that collection of experiences and situations into the context of the college community,” said Bazile. “With a strong belief that social and academic integration are essential in student retention, I look forward to bringing my experience and expertise to assist Ithaca College with providing a rich and fulfilling education for students.”

During his 25-year career, Bazile has held academic and student affairs leadership positions at CUNY-Lehman College, CUNY-Kingsborough Community College, St. John’s University, Cumberland County College, and Penn State University, among other institutions. He has also taught at the undergraduate and doctoral levels and maintains an active research agenda that examines transfer students, retention, and first-generation college students.

Bazile received both B.A. and M.S.W. degrees from Stony Brook University, and a Ph.D. in educational leadership from Penn State. He served as a doctoral fellow at the University of California at Berkeley and graduated from executive leadership programs at Harvard University and the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

He is a member of the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators and ACPA-College Student Educators International, which recently named him to its 2024 Class of Diamond Honorees, signifying those with an outstanding and sustained commitment to higher education through student affairs and student development. 

Bazile succeeds Bonnie Prunty, who has led the Division of Student Affairs and Campus Life as vice president since 2022 and will be retiring at the end of this academic year after serving in a variety of leadership roles since joining the college in 1988.