Welcome our New Assistant Vice President, Dr. David Taylor

Dr. David G. Taylor, known to most simply as Dave, joins SUNY Erie as Assistant Vice President, bringing nearly two decades of experience in higher education leadership, institutional planning, and student success strategy. Dave works closely with the President and the senior leadership team to advance major strategic initiatives, strengthen internal operations, and collaborate with the SUNY Erie community as the point-person for SUNY system campaigns and initiatives. In this role, Dave leads or co-leads high-impact special projects, helps align college-wide priorities, and supports organizational effectiveness efforts that further SUNY Erie’s mission and long-term sustainability.

Prior to joining SUNY Erie, Dave served as Associate Vice President for Academic Operations, Director of the Institute for Policy and Opinion Research, and Professor of Mathematics at Roanoke College. There, he led or co-led strategic academic planning, faculty resource allocation, new academic program development, and accreditation and compliance processes. His collaborative budgeting and operational redesign initiatives helped enhance efficiency, increase student pathways to degree completion, and drive meaningful gains in net tuition revenue and academic program sustainability, all while focusing on faculty, staff, and student well-being.

Dave’s career reflects a firm belief that colleges are at their best when they cultivate agency — in students, staff, and faculty alike. His leadership philosophy centers on clarity, shared ownership, and building systems that work with people (rather than systems that require people to work around them). He has led or co-led institutional accreditation efforts, academic integrity systems, general education reform efforts, community and healthcare partnerships, and transfer pathway expansion work, particularly with community colleges — making SUNY Erie feel less like a new home and more like a familiar fit.

A mathematician by training, Dave holds a Ph.D. in Mathematics from the University of Virginia, and his scholarly work spans infinite-dimensional Lie algebras, the mathematics of games, democratic polling methodology, and teaching innovation. He is the author of Games, Gambling, and Probability and co-editor of Living Proof: Stories of Resilience Along the Mathematical Journey, which received the Euler Book Prize in 2022.

Dave’s work has long blended analytics with storytelling — whether helping explain statewide public opinion trends as a polling director or turning mathematical curiosities into entertaining talks on the connections between magic and mathematics. (Yes, he’s actually a magician. Yes, card tricks in meetings are a real possibility. Yes, he promises to use them only for good.)

Outside of work, Dave enjoys exploring the outdoors, having a blend between city and suburb life, maintaining his streak of never saying no to a good pizza, and visiting family throughout the Harrisburg-to-New-England corridor. He is also a proud dog dad to Lilly and continues to claim — with statistically remarkable confidence — that he is “pretty decent” at trivia nights, board games, and making up puns on the spot.