English professor named associate dean for Ambler

There is a new face helping set the course for the future of Temple University Ambler. He comes with a breadth of experience that spans more than 30 years.

Dr. Phil Yannella was recently appointed the new associate dean for curriculum and planning at Temple University Ambler. A professor of English and American Studies, he has been part of the University faculty since 1970.

“Ambler is in a new phase of development,” Yannella said. “It is going to be expanding and the University is placing considerable resources behind it.

“The curriculum is evolving in very good ways that will be of interest to the regional community,” he continued. “I wanted to be a part of this growth and change process.”

According to Temple University Ambler Dean Sophia T. Wisniewska, Yannella will provide leadership for Ambler College curricular matters, including identifying, planning, implementing, and evaluating academic programs.

He will work closely with faculty and administrators at Ambler and with the colleges and departments at Main Campus to facilitate the implementation of new academic programs, and to ensure academic quality.

“I am delighted to appoint Phil Yannella as Ambler’s associate dean for curriculum and planning. Dr. Yannella is an excellent teacher, scholar and administrator,” said Wisniewska. “As chair of Ambler’s Curriculum Committee, he impressed me with his intellect, competence and ability to work collegially.

“I am confident that he has the experience, energy and creativity to provide the strong leadership that Ambler College needs as we develop and strengthen our academic programs,” she added.

Ambler College, a new academic division established at Temple University Ambler in 2000, includes the landscape architecture and horticulture department and the recently approved community and regional planning program.

One of Yannella’s primary focuses in the coming year will be getting the community and regional planning degree “off the drawing board and into the classroom.” It will be offered for the first time in fall 2002.

A graduate degree in the same field also is currently pending approval by the University.

“They are highly intellectual programs with obvious practical applications within the Delaware Valley,” he said. “For anyone concerned with sprawl, the programs are going to be of tremendous use to their communities.”

Yannella said extensive work on a proposed family studies degree program, which would also be exclusive to Ambler, will continue in the coming year.

“There are several faculty members engaged in the planning of this new program,” Yannella said. “All of them are nationally recognized scholars and practitioners in the field.

“Given all of the stresses and changes that are taking place in families, it is a program with great practical effect,” he noted. “It is a subject that is literally of concern to people from cradle to grave.”

Yannella comes to his new position with an extensive background in working with new programs and developing new curricula.

He was previously director of the Temple University American studies program from 1983 to 1990, 1992 to 1994, and 1998 to 2000. He was chair of the educational programs and policies committee at Temple from 1983 to 1984.

He also served as the president of the faculty union and as the head of various curricular committees within the University.

Yannella’s expertise is in modern American literature, contemporary work issues and management of labor relations. One of the numerous courses he has taught is “Contemporary Trends in the American Workplace,” an American studies course that “addresses one of the major issues in the United States—what people do for a living.”

“It’s how we spend at least a third of our waking hours. I try to teach courses with a practical edge to them,” he said. “I think at Temple, across the board, there is a sense that we are teaching courses that are not just wonderful to learn, but useful to learn.”

Yannella received the College of Arts and Sciences Distinguished Teaching Award and the University’s Great Teacher Award in 1997. He has taught in the People’s Republic of China and in Japan.

For seven years he was the director of the USIA/Fulbright “Summer Institute” in the United States, in which he trained more than 250 scholars from 56 countries how to teach American culture in their home countries. Yannella’s The Other Carl Sandburg won a Choice Distinguished Academic Book Award in 1997.

“Ambler College is a great place already; I’d like to make a contribution to make it better and better serve its community,” Yannella said. “Ambler is often thought of as a small college, but it is not the typical small college.

“It has a powerful, world-class research university behind it,” he concluded. “I think Ambler in a few years will be one of the true ‘Public Ivys.’”

— James Duffy, Ambler Public Relations