Joseph F. Sheley
Joseph F. Sheley joined California State University, Stanislaus, as interim president on June 11, 2012. He previously served as provost and vice president for academic affairs at Sacramento State, his alma mater.
After earning a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Sheley spent 21 years as a faculty member at Tulane University, where he also served as chair of the Department of Sociology and faculty head of the University Senate.
Sheley returned to Sacramento State in 1996, serving as dean of the College of Social Sciences and Interdisciplinary Studies until 2005. In addition to his most recent role of provost and vice president for academic affairs, he served as director of alumni relations from 2004-05 and as executive vice president from 2005-06.
Sheley has been awarded numerous grants and has published extensively in his general area of interest, criminology, and his particular field of expertise, patterns of acquisition and use of firearms by juveniles. He is a proponent of regional partnership roles for contemporary metropolitan universities and of the systematic application of university teaching and scholarship to issues of regional, social and economic development.
