Barends appointed Delaware Tech Owens Campus director

Delaware Technical Community College’s Board of Trustees unanimously approved Dr. Bobbi J. Barends as vice president and campus director for the Jack F. Owens Campus in Georgetown, effective Tuesday, Jan. 3.

Barends has been serving as dean of instruction since August, 2010. She began her career at Delaware Tech as department chair in the occupational therapy assistant department in 2007. During her tenure at the college, she also served as assistant dean of instruction and acting assistant to the campus director. 

Prior to joining Delaware Tech, Barends served as assistant professor of occupational therapy at Elizabethtown College in New Jersey. Her career in higher education has included teaching, advisement, faculty and staff development, campus and collegewide planning and assessment, program development, outreach to kindergarten through 12th grades, higher education and community partners, as well as oversight of marketing and public relations, fundraising and grant writing and budget development and management.

Barends has led numerous collegewide committees and working groups focused on learning communities, learning commons, supplemental instruction, developmental education and dual enrollment. She has held leadership roles in the college’s accreditation with the Middle States Commission on Higher Education as well as campus and collegewide program accreditations.

She has also served as the instructional division liaison to the College’s Affordable Care Act working group. She is an advocate for individuals with special needs and currently serves as a Court Appointed Special Advocate for Sussex County and serves on the board of Friends of CASA.

Barends has a bachelor’s degree in exercise science from the University of Pittsburgh, a master’s degree in occupational therapy at Misericordia University and a PhD in education from Walden University. She is a graduate of the college’s Leadership Development Program.