Janeen Hill Built Crean College by Challenging Everything — Including Herself The founding dean grew Crean College of Health and Behavioral Sciences into Chapman’s second-largest academic unit

Janeen Hill used to dread raising her hand. Long before she led Crean College of Health and Behavioral Sciences, she sat in faculty meetings too nervous to ask a question.

“I decided that was absolutely ridiculous,” Hill said.

So, she gave herself a rule: every meeting, one hand raised, one question asked. She kept at it until the fear was gone.

Hill has been making decisions like that ever since. Over 29 years at Chapman, she helped shape Crean College of Health and Behavioral Sciences from an idea into a major academic unit, expanding programs in high-demand health fields and supporting community clinics that train students while caring for underserved patients across Orange County.

Now, she’s preparing to step down from her dean role on July 31 and return to the faculty. She’ll take a well-deserved sabbatical starting this summer.

Her path — from a reluctant speaker to a dean willing to challenge convention — offers a window into how she built the college, navigated setbacks, and prepared it to move forward without her. Laura Glynn, Ph.D., professor of psychology, will serve as interim dean.

“I have no regrets about this decision,” Hill said. “The college is in good shape. I am ready to step away.”

Betting on Health Care

Hill arrived at Chapman in 1997 as an assistant professor and quickly moved into leadership — chairing the biology department, serving as Faculty Senate president before earning tenure, and later becoming dean of Schmid College of Science and Technology.

Then she made a different decision: she argued that her own college should be split in two.

She made her case in a white paper: Orange County was aging, and health care providers were in short supply. The gaps pointed to an opportunity.

When Hoag, St. Joseph’s, and Cedars-Sinai approached Chapman about partnering on a medical school, Hill provided an alternate perspective. She argued instead for investment in the allied healthcare professions.

“It seemed it would be better to not do a medical school but instead invest in the other healthcare providers that you could educate faster, bring them out into the community sooner,” she said.

Physician assistants, physical therapists, speech-language pathologists — the clinicians Orange County desperately needed.

On June 1, 2014, Crean College opened its doors.

A Setback, Then a Reset

The physician assistant program was central to Hill’s vision for Crean College, and within its first year, it hit a wall. The accrediting body reviewed the initial program application and rejected it outright. Hill went back to university leadership and made the case for another attempt. They backed her.

She rebuilt the application from the ground up and secured provisional accreditation. Michael Burney, Ed.D., who directs the program today, watched Hill teach herself the entire physician assistant ecosystem — accreditation standards, licensing boards, clinical culture. A physiologist by training, she learned what the program needed and delivered it.

“Dr. Hill had the vision to establish a PA program at Chapman that would serve the health care needs of Orange County,” Burney said. “And she has provided the administrative and academic leadership that has been integral to our program’s success.”

The program earned provisional accreditation. Its charter class enrolled in January 2017: 25 students. Today it ranks among the nation’s top physician assistant programs, with a 99 percent first-attempt board pass rate — among the highest in the country.

Raising the Standard

As a dean, Hill set clear expectations for growth. New hires hear it early: Crean is a place where improvement is expected. The goal isn’t comfort — it’s progress.

That approach extends beyond the classroom. Community clinics pair student training with care for uninsured patients: Stroke Boot Camp, Parkinson’s Boot Camp, the Childhood Learning Center in Santa Ana, and the Learning Lab at Rinker. Students see what their skills mean to people who might otherwise go without care.

Mike Ibba, executive vice president, provost, and chief academic officer, has watched Hill’s persistence up close.

“She’s going to keep pushing because she’s passionate about it and she believes in it,” Ibba said. “And she’ll unashamedly make herself unpopular with anybody, trying to champion these things.”

What Comes Next

Hill isn’t slowing down.

The day her deanship ends, Hill boards a flight to Courmayeur, Italy. She and her son plan to spend 10 days hiking in the Alps — a tradition they’ve built over the years.

The trail is steep. She’s walking it anyway.