Spring Break
Lange, Chafe reorganize arts and sciences administrators
By: Greg Pessin
Last update: 1/18/06 at 11:36 AM EST
- Page 1 of 1
|
Shortly after taking office this summer, new Provost Peter Lange named William Chafe as the vice provost for undergraduate education.
The change gives one person ultimate accountability and responsibility for undergraduate academics, including Trinity College, engineering, admissions and financial aid.
Lange said the appointment of Chafe will promote better coordination among the various components of undergraduate education.
"It is important that we assure that the various pieces of undergraduate life-in the classroom and outside-reinforce each other to contribute to the highest quality of education and experience for our undergraduates," he said.
In turn, Chafe made several changes to the arts and sciences administration.
Pending Board of Trustees approval, Robert Thompson will become dean of Trinity College and will assume direct responsibility for the school's curriculum, administration and teaching.
Chafe still retains the title of dean of the faculty of arts and sciences. In this capacity, Chafe appointed two new deans to replace former Dean of Faculty Development Jim Siedow.
As of Sept. 1, Karla Holloway is dean of the humanities and social sciences and Berndt Mueller is dean of the natural sciences.
Chafe said the reassignment will give him more time to coordinate large-scale efforts.
"Under this new system, more of my time will be spent in coordinating undergraduate policy with the deans of Trinity College and engineering and the vice president for student affairs, in University-wide committees dealing with issues like space and residential life, in long-term planning with the president and provost, and in consultation with the deans of other schools," he wrote in an e-mail.
Chafe will also chair the Undergraduate Administrators' Group, a long-standing committee designed to address the major issues of undergraduate life.
Thompson's new title will help recognize the function he has performed during his two years as dean of undergraduate affairs-including primary charge of coordinating the curriculum and writing program, Chafe said.
Thompson said the revision makes a symbolic statement that the Trinity College is an entity worthy of having its own dean.
"Trinity College has a long and important history. It is a major entity in people's minds. The sense of the college as a college is important," he said.
In the other dean appointments, the replacement of Siedow, a professor of botany who stepped down this summer, with two deans will allow each to focus on junior faculty recruitment and retention and budgetary and faculty supervision.
Chafe said the assigned divisional responsibility should help improve administrators' communication with departments.
"[Holloway and Mueller] will also take the leading role in long-range planning for their divisions, for helping to design, and then implement, the recruitment and retention plans for their departments, and to work with me on reappointment and tenure cases," Chafe said.
Over the next several weeks, Mueller said he will meet with all science department chairs and then set his agenda for the year.
"I think there are two issues," he said. "One is how to better facilitate interdisciplinary research... and the second major issue is [facilities]."
Mueller, former chair of the physics department, also said he hopes to move quickly in reaction to the biological sciences external review committee's report, which recommended that botany and zoology merge into a single department.
"I think certainly the issue on the table before the University certainly needs to be clarified in what the biological sciences reorganization within the arts and sciences and Duke will mean," he said
Holloway, the William Rand Kenan professor of English and African-American literature and former director of the African and African-American Studies program, could not be reached for comment.
