Siân Mooney, dean of the O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs, said she plans to step down from her position June 30 after almost seven years.
Mooney started as dean in 2019 and previously worked as a professor in Arizona State University’s School of Public Affairs and as an associate dean at the school’s Watts College of Public Service and Community Solutions.
"It was a decision that I had been thinking about for, you know, a couple of months,” Mooney said.
After stepping down, Mooney said she will take a sabbatical to get back up to speed on literature and research.
“I think I can spend a little bit of time thinking about what I’d like to do to re-engage in scholarship,” Mooney said.
Mooney, who has a background in resource and environmental economics, said she will begin teaching at the O’Neill School in about a year, getting assigned classes like other faculty members.
“I felt that this was just a really good moment to step away because I felt I’d accomplished a lot,” Mooney said.
The O’Neill School is bigger and more successful than it has ever been, Mooney said.
In this year’s U.S. News & World Report rankings, the O’Neill School Master of Public Affairs is tied with the Maxwell School at Syracuse University for first.
“I think for me this has been a really good seven years,” Mooney said. “I mean, I will honestly say it was very tough at the start because when I came in 2019, it was right before the pandemic.”
O’Neill is a core school, meaning Mooney is the dean at IU’s Bloomington and Indianapolis campuses and has to commute back and forth multiple times a week.
Making sure that there is a smooth transition out of office is her top priority, Mooney said.
The search for the next dean will begin in the fall, IU Bloomington Chancellor David Reingold said during the 2026 State of the Campus address on April 7.
“John Graham, the prior dean, had already done a lot of really excellent work, so I inherited something from him and everybody,” Mooney said. “(It) already was good, and I think that we’ve managed to advance that even further and I feel very proud of giving that over.”
