Gary H. Dunham Named Director of SUNY Press

Albany – The Office of the Provost and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs at the State University of New York is pleased to announce that Gary H. Dunham has been appointed director of the State University of New York Press, effective January 2, 2008. 

SUNY Provost Risa I. Palm on announcing the appointment remarked, “Gary Dunham brings exceptional experience to this position. We are delighted to have recruited him, and expect a very positive future for the SUNY Press.”

Dunham brings with him more than 15 years of university press publishing experience, serving most recently as the director of the University of Nebraska Press, one of the largest public university presses in the nation.

As director at Nebraska, he developed and implemented the press’s first strategic business plan for multifaceted revenue generation. This strategic plan has been instrumental in that press overcoming a large deficit spending and returning to a balanced budget within three years.

“It is a privilege and an exciting opportunity to become the director of SUNY Press,” Dunham acknowledges. “The Press is one of the illustrious jewels in the crown of the SUNY system, a major international press that has published thousands of significant works of scholarship over a span of more than forty years. And it will continue to grow in prestige and presence within the state and beyond.”

About SUNY Press

Founded in 1966 with an international reputation for excellence, the State University of New York Press (SUNY Press) has become one of the largest state university presses in the United States with an annual output of approximately 170 titles per year and a backlist of more than 4,000 titles

Particular strengths lie in the fields of education, philosophy, religion, and asian studies, with continuing notice in the areas of political science, regional studies, women’s studies, African American studies, cultural studies, and environmental studies. All manuscripts published by SUNY Press must be approved by an editorial board that has jurisdiction over its imprint. The Editorial Board consists of 12 faculty members drawn from campuses throughout the SUNY system and appointed by the Chancellor.

“Forging new collaborations with authors and organizations across the region will increase markedly the Press’s publications on the culture, history, and literature of New York State,” Dunham said. “Energetic and visionary leadership in the SUNY system, coupled with a renewed commitment by the press to the electronic and print dissemination of SUNY research initiatives, will further the research goals of the SUNY system and enhance the excellence, versatility, and topicality of the Press’s publications.”

Gary H. Dunham Background

Dunham was raised in rural Maine and in Glens Falls, where some of his family still live. A 1982 summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Bowdoin College, Dunham went on to complete both his M.A. and Ph.D. in anthropology at the University of Virginia.

There, he directed the excavation of a large prehistoric burial mound along the Rapidan River in Virginia, working with the local Monacan tribe to excavate, study, and eventually rebury the remains of their ancestors. In addition to his career in university press publishing, Dunham has taught anthropology at the University of Virginia, Charlottesville, the University of Nebraska, Lincoln, and Creighton University. Recently he co-edited a book on American Indian powwows.

Dunham joined the University of Nebraska Press in 1995, as an acquiring editor in indigenous studies and anthropology. Nebraska is now recognized as one of the leading presses in the world in those fields, with Dunham in 2001 being named Publisher of the Year by the nationally acclaimed Wordcraft Circle of Native Writers and Storytellers. He was promoted to editor-in-chief in 1997 and was appointed director in 2004.

Under his leadership, the Nebraska press moved forward rapidly to expand its journals program, to digitalize its entire inventory, and to develop state-wide partnerships with the Nebraska State Historical Society; the Office of Research at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln; and the University of Nebraska’s Digital Center for the Humanities, where he has served on the advisory board.

The State University of New York is the largest comprehensive university system in the United States, educating more than 417,500 students in 7,669 degree and certificate programs on 64 campuses. To learn more about how SUNY creates opportunity, visit www.suny.edu 

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