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CSUB marks ‘a great new chapter’ for new provost

Dr. Deborah Thien aims to help set conditions for academic success at university

By California State University, Bakersfield

October 16^th, 2025

Dr. Deborah Thien envisioned one day serving as a university provost, but that day arrived much more quickly than she anticipated.

Dr. Thien was serving as the dean of the College of Liberal Arts at California State University, Long Beach (CSULB) when she learned that the Bakersfield campus was looking to hire a new provost. Although Dr. Thien was enjoying her role at CSULB and wasn’t planning to make a career change, the position was too appealing to ignore.

“I wasn’t imagining I would make that jump so soon. I was thinking a few years down the line,” she said. “But the more I learned about the position, the more excited I got about it.”

Dr. Thien decided to apply for the position. She wasn’t sure at first if CSUB would be the right fit for her. That changed when, during the interview process, Dr. Thien visited the campus for the first time.

“It was a great day. I could sense that it was a warm campus with clear bonds and a tight community,” she said. “It sealed the deal because then I saw all of the good work that was happening here. This is a campus that, for its size, really punches above its weight. There’s a lot of will to move the campus forward.”

When President Vernon B. Harper Jr. called to offer her the position of provost and vice president for Academic Affairs, Dr. Thien was excited to accept. She moved to Bakersfield with her son Owen and assumed her new role on July 1.

“I feel so warmly welcomed by the campus community and the community at large. I have thoroughly enjoyed meeting all the different campus constituents,” she said. “It’s important for me to learn this community in a meaningful way so that I can be the best provost I can be to the campus, and I am doing everything I can to accelerate that process. This has proven to be the start of a great new chapter in my career.”

Dr. Thien joined the Roadrunners after spending nearly 20 years at the Long Beach campus. She first started in 2006 as a geography professor before moving into administrative roles, including serving as the chair of Human Development Department, associate dean of enrollment management and student success and, most recently, as the dean of the College of Liberal Arts.

Dr. Thien completed all of her higher education outside of the United States. She earned her bachelor’s degree in English and women’s studies at the University of Victoria, Canada in 1995, her master’s in gender studies from the University of Northern British Columbia in 2000 and her Ph.D. in human geography from the University of Edinburgh in the United Kingdom in 2006.

While pursuing her master’s, Dr. Thien also spent a year as an International Exchange Scholar at Massey University in New Zealand.

Dr. Harper said he’s excited to see the impact that Dr. Thien will have at CSUB as the provost.

“Dr. Thien is a remarkable administrator with a clear understanding of how our academic enterprise can lift students and family of this region,” he said. “As the provost, she’s the second in command at the university, and her leadership will be felt throughout the entire institution.”

Humble beginnings

Dr. Thien grew up on the eastern coast of Canada’s Vancouver Island in the small town of Parksville. While she enjoyed her childhood on the island, Dr. Thien came to realize how truly separated she was from the mainland.

To get to Vancouver, the nearest major city, from Parksville requires nearly an hour of driving to a ferry terminal and then a ride of more than 90 minutes to reach the mainland. It would then take nearly another hour to drive from the ferry terminal to the city.

“When I was growing up, I never thought I lived remotely. It didn’t feel restrictive at the time,” she said. “Living there was great. One of the reasons why I feel like Bakersfield is such a nice fit for me is that is has that small town vibe even though it’s big. It really resonates for me, and I think that’s because of the positive experiences of the childhood setting I grew up in. It was a beautiful place to grow up.”

Like many CSUB students, Dr. Thien commuted to college and was the first in her family to pursue higher education. She attended community college in the nearby city of Nanaimo, which was an eye-opening experience for her.

“It was so transformational for me when I started at the community college,” Dr. Thien said. “The things that I knew but couldn’t articulate, I could then articulate because I was in these classrooms where people were teaching me how to frame my thoughts. When I talk today about public education being transformational, I authentically believe that. That is my experience.”

Dr. Thien originally wanted to pursue a business degree but found all the classes she would need to take were full. Unsure what she would be good at, she took classes in a variety of subjects and discovered a passion for English literature.

That led Dr. Thien to pursue an English degree the University of Victoria, located in the biggest city on the island and about a two-hour drive from Parksville. Dr. Thien also developed an interest in women’s studies there.

“As an English lit major, I was interested in the intersections of gender, identity and place as they played out in the novels that I was reading and studying,” she said.

After graduating from the university, Dr. Thien decided to spend a few years exploring the world outside of Vancouver Island, which included a stint working for a women’s alcohol and drug recovery center in New Zealand.

“I got more interested in women’s studies through working there, what led these women there and the experiences that they had,” she said. “I started reading about feminist geography, which led me to thinking about the place-based aspects of gender, about it being a women-only center and what that meant in the context of New Zealand compared to other places.”

That work experience played a pivotal role in Dr. Thien’s decision to pursue a master’s in women’s studies at the University of Northern British Columbia. It was also at the university where she began teaching English.

“I was terrified when I was first responsible for a class. It was that feeling of ‘They’re not going to take me seriously. Who do I think I am?” she said.

While it was challenging at first, Dr. Thien enjoyed her work as a teacher because it gave her the opportunity to share her love for learning.

“I love being in the classroom. I got so much out of it,” she said. “I love getting to think and read and try to understand things. The great part about teaching is getting to share that with others.”

Dr. Thien originally had no plans to get a Ph.D., as she was busy with her graduate classes and teaching work. However, after some encouragement from faculty, she began looking into it and was able to secure a scholarship to attend the University of Edinburgh in Scotland.

Dr. Thien decided to pursue a degree in geography, with her research focused on women’s health and wellbeing in the rural and remote Shetland Islands, located off the coast of Scotland.

“Geography is just so cool,” she said. “It’s fascinating to think and learn about how people live in places different than your own. Perhaps it’s something to do with growing up on an island where place really matters.”

CSUB marks ‘a great new chapter’ for new provost

An unexpected path

Working in the U.S. wasn’t part of Dr. Thien’s career plans after she graduated with her Ph.D. She was doing post-doctoral work for the National Research Council in Canada when she saw that CSU Long Beach was looking to hire a geography professor.

Although she received conflicting advice from her colleagues about the position, Dr. Thien thought it was a good opportunity and decided to apply.

“Some of the people around me at the time said I should just finish my postdoc and wait. I feel that the implication was to wait for something better, but this sounded really good for me. I was attracted to the mission of the campus,” she said. “That triggered something in me. It was a moment of clarification of what my values were and what I wanted to achieve. This path came and it just called to me, and I have never regretted it.”

Dr. Thien was excited about joining the university, but she didn’t anticipate she would stay there for nearly two decades.

“It was a welcoming place to land for my first professorial job. I felt supported every step of the way, and I felt like I was making a difference every step of the way,” she said. “I just got very folded in. I felt that I had such an opportunity there.”

Dr. Thien enjoyed being a faculty member and getting to interact with students. She was able to develop close relationships with many of them, especially the master’s students that she mentored.

“As a faculty member in the CSU, you really see in real time that you’re a part of something for the students who are moving through that is really life-changing,” she said. “You see people come to grips with new ways of thinking, how it impacts their families. That’s very fulfilling, and not something you want to walk away from.”

When the opportunity came to move into an administrative role at CSULB, Dr. Thien thought she was ready for the change but acknowledged that being in leadership is a much different experience.

“As a faculty member, you work very independently. That’s the nature of the work,” she said. “As you move into administration, you are now leading a group of people. When you’re in an office setting and you are in charge of that office, people are looking at you to set the tone and structure, to indicate what work needs to happen. I had to learn how to do that.”

'It is an awesome responsibility'

Dr Thien believes that her experience as both a faculty member and an administrator has prepared her well to serve as provost and vice president for Academic Affairs at CSUB.

“I really see my job as setting the conditions for the success of the faculty, staff and students, to try to move barriers and create paths for people to succeed,” she said. “My responsibility as the provost is to ensure that we have the space for academic excellence to take place.”

Dr. Thien sees her role as not only about supporting CSUB faculty, students and staff in the short term but also having a long-term vision for how to improve student success.

“The academic enterprise is a long-term enterprise,” she said. “That means looking forward and thinking about what are the things we need to put in place today to serve our students better in the future. That means looking closely at the programs that we offer, the curriculum that we have. It’s a decades-long vision.”

As more than 60% of CSUB graduates stay to work in the region, Dr. Thien said the level of students’ academic success has a measurable impact on the broader community.

“We have to make sure that they have the best possible tools for their success,” she said. “We know they’re going to staff the hospitals, the schools, the businesses that are located here, so there’s kind of a double importance in that we’re educating them to serve in our backyard. Everything we do is noticed because we’re in the community. It means we’re accountable in a daily way for the work that we do.”

While Dr. Thien believes the provost can play a significant role in shaping the trajectory of the university, she said it is important that curriculum decisions remain in the hands of faculty.

“As provost, I’m not deciding on courses or content, but I can support and help guide them,” she said. “I want to uplift and amplify the work of the faculty in their scholarly areas, to the advantage of our students and our community.”

Dr. Thien believes her younger self — who grew up in a small island town and was the first in her family to attend college — would be surprised to see how far she has come in her career.

“Sometimes I just have these moments where it hits me, both the honor and responsibility of it. It is an awesome responsibility, but it is also an enormous privilege to have a part in that,” she said about serving as provost at CSUB. “I want to do what is right and have an ethical north star in everything I do.”