Draft:Brian Cronk

Brian Cronk is an American psychologist who specializes in higher education. He worked at Missouri Western State University from 1993 to 2021 where he held a number of roles as a faculty member and administrator. This included being the Inaugural Dean of the Graduate School (overseeing a doubling of students each year) and Associate Provost.

Cronk came to SUNY Buffalo State University in 2021 as the Inaugural Dean of the School of Arts and Sciences.

Cronk is the author of a popular textbook on SPSS published by Routledge and serves as a Beta tester for IBM and new experimental versions of SPSS. That text is currently in its 12th edition. A full listing of Cronk's scholarly work is available at Google Scholar.

Education
Cronk received his PhD in Experimental Psychology (Cognition & Perception / Quantitative Methods) and Computer Science from the University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee. His MA degree in Experimental Psychology is from Bradley University. His BS degree in Psychology is from the University of Wisconsin.

Undergraduate research
Cronk is an advocate for High Impact Learning Practices, especially Undergraduate Research. As such, Cronk created the National Undergraduate Research Clearinghouse using National Science Foundation funds. The clearinghouse was an online repository where undergraduates in STEM fields can post articles subject to faculty approval (rather than a formal peer review). It has been online since 1997 and has been featured in magazines such as Science and Nature. Articles from the clearinghouse have been used as resources for journalists at publications including the Christian Science Monitor, NBC News , Wall Street Journal and the Los Angeles Daily News. His students have published work, including work on the psychology of Major League Umpires

The Clearinghouse was deactivated in January of 2024, however, an archive of the articles exists at the Web Archive.

As an advocate for undergraduate research experiences, Cronk was a nationally elected councilor in CUR (Council for Undergraduate Research) for six years.

Awards and honors
Cronk received the APA Science Directorate Dissertation Research Award as well as being one of the first recipients of the APS Student Research Award. While at Missouri Western he received the Jesse Lee Myers Excellence in Teaching Award as well as a Board of Governors Distinguished Professor Award.

Budget management
Cronk was called upon by the administration at Missouri Western to participate in a comprehensive Academic Program and Staffing Review which resulted in recommendations regarding program and staffing restructuring in response to a budget deficit and lack of reserve funds. Cronk was similarly called upon to examine programs while at Buffalo State as the Dean to help reduce a $16 to $25 million annual structural deficit that is part of what the SUNY system predicts to be a $1 billion deficit by 2035.