Stephen Bowen, Ph.D., former provost and vice president for academic affairs at Pennsylvania's Bucknell University, was named Dean in the summer of 2005.

Dr. Bowen, a biologist by training, came up through the ranks at Michigan Technological University, joining its faculty as an assistant professor in 1978 and becoming first a department head, then associate dean, then vice provost, before serving a six-month term as interim provost in 2000. Later that year he became Michigan Tech's vice provost for instruction and distance learning before leaving to join the Bucknell administration in 2001.

His academic specialty is in the ecology of fishes, having published widely on diet and digestion in a number of aquatic species, nutritional consequences of alternative feeding strategies, DNA diversity of fishes in the Great Lakes, and other subjects.

Dr Bowen received his bachelor's degree in 1971 from DePauw University, followed two years later by an M.A. from Indiana University. He earned his Ph.D. in 1976 from Rhodes University in Grahamstown, South Africa.