VCU Wilder School names new dean

Susan T. Gooden has been the interim dean since May 2018.

Published April 17, 2020 by Sydney Lake

Virginia Commonwealth University announced Wednesday that Susan T. Gooden is now dean of the university’s L. Douglas Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs.

Gooden has been the interim dean of the school since May 2018 and has been with VCU since 2004, when she started as an associate professor in the Wilder School. She has also served as director of graduate programs, the founder and director of the Wilder Graduate Scholars Fellowship program and executive director of the Grace E. Harris Leadership Institute.

Before her time at VCU, Gooden taught at Virginia Tech’s Center for Public Administration and Policy and was the founding director of the Race and Social Policy Research Center there.

Gooden earned her associate’s degree in natural science from Patrick Henry Community College, her bachelor’s degree in English and master’s in political science from Tech, and her master’s and doctorate in political science from the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University.

Wilder became an independent school at VCU in 2013 and currently has approximately 1,000 undergraduate students and 400 graduate students.