By Katie Farkas
In this new column, The Delphian will highlight a different administrator at Adelphi University in each issue so that students get to know them better. We’ll focus on what their administrative position is at Adelphi, their background and how they came to hold their current position.
Chris Storm is the provost and executive vice president at Adelphi. He was hired to this position in July 2021 after working at the university since 2007. So what does a provost do? Storm said the position is like the chief academic officer. “I am responsible for and really look to ensure that all of our academic programs have integrity and quality,” he said. “So I am very concerned with the student learning experience with things like pedagogy, how things are taught and what our degree programs are.”
Prior to becoming the provost, Storm worked as the associate provost for Faculty Advancement and Research for five years. He was the associate professor and departmental chair for the math department for three years and an assistant professor for six years.
“I joined Adelphi in 2007. I began as an assistant professor of mathematics, so effectively my first job out of graduate school,” he said. “I taught in the math program on pretty much all levels. I enjoyed calculus, but would teach all the way up to senior-level mathematics coursework. At one point I actually developed a course called games mathematicians play.”
With his new position, he is looking to make research, internships and other professional opportunities something that every student participates in at Adelphi.
“Adelphi is very committed to its students on an individualized and personal level. Some programs are very good at placing with internships, some programs are very good at engaging students in undergraduate research or clinical. But we haven't put it together as a full university to say every student in this university will have an opportunity to engage in some authentic experience like that,” Storm said. “So I think knitting that together in a real way would be very powerful in terms of what the university does.”
Prior to his almost 14-year career at Adelphi, Storm did both his undergraduate and graduate degrees at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, although he is originally from Armarillo, Texas. All of his degrees are in mathematics.
“That's one of the things about higher education in fact is that often the degree and the credentials might be a disciplinary degree that really prepares you to do research in that discipline and you figure out the rest as you go,” he said.
Storm can speak both French and Spanish, although he may need some refreshers.
“I did study abroad in France for 10 weeks. So I lived with a host family, took classes at a university in France, and actually a year later I was able to do another study abroad, but this time as the teaching assistant for the program,” he said. “The first was in Toulouse and the second was in Leon. I think those really stand out as more formative, global types of experiences.”
He also went straight from undergrad into graduate school. But Storm said what is probably his most notable activity is that he played the card game bridge. “I was one hand away from representing the United States in international competitions so in that time period I was fairly serious in that domain. I did play against Bill Gates at one point too.”
Storm also mentioned he is “a big believer in getting a lot of sleep.” He has a standard poodle puppy named Shadow and a 15-year-old black cat named Zeta. He is married and has two children. He said his wife Vivian works for Nassau Suffolk Law Services as a public interest attorney who works to help keep people in housing. He also has family living in Spain, France and Belgium, and said, “we tend to be a little more international than one might expect.”
When asked about any advice he could give to current students, Storm said, “It’s easy to give advice, but it’s challenging to know what to do. What I would suggest is that the world has so many things to offer in it and it throws so many things at you so quickly that it is always worth pausing for a few minutes and thinking about whether or not the things that you are doing are things that you enjoy.”