Radcliffe Institute Sticks With Its Dean; Irvine Picks Dean of Engineering; Western Washington U. Names New President; U. of Massachusetts at Amherst Chooses Chancellor

Article tools

Printer friendly	E-mail article	Subscribe	Order reprints
	Discuss any Chronicle article in our forums
Latest Headlines U. of Delaware Approves New Diversity Discussions for Students The new, voluntary program will replace one tossed out last fall after coming under criticism as "thought reform." In Tight Employment Market, Career Services Gain Clout Borrowers' Uncertainty Has Colleges in Quandary How It Does It: The RIAA Explains How It Catches Alleged Music Pirates State High-School Exit Tests Do Not Improve Academic Achievement, Study Finds Commentary Business Students Should Learn More About Science

By EUGENE MCCORMACK, PAULA WASLEY, RICHARD BYRNE, and CHARLES HUCKABEE

ADVANCED COMPUTATION: Barbara J. Grosz, interim dean of Harvard University's Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study since July, has been named to the position permanently. Ms. Grosz officially replaces Drew Gilpin Faust, who stepped down last year to become president of the university.

Ms. Grosz is a computer scientist and newly elected member of the National Academy of Engineering whose research focuses on artificial intelligence. She joined Harvard in 1986 as a professor of computer science and since 2001 has been a professor of natural sciences. From 2001 to 2007, she served as the institute's first dean of science. In 2005, Ms. Grosz led the university's Task Force on Women in Science and Engineering, which was formed in response to controversial remarks by Harvard's former president, Lawrence H. Summers, about the dearth of women in the sciences.

The Radcliffe institute, which is largely known for its fellowship program, brings in 50 people each year from different disciplines who form a community to publicly share their work.

Ms. Grosz used her interim position to expand a program that allows fellows and faculty members to invite visiting scholars for short periods of time. Now that she is in the job permanently, she says, she will push forward with longer-range plans, such as a new policy-studies program. "I promise you the first issue will not be global warming," she said with a laugh. "That's already being done in a lot of places."

Despite her science background, Ms. Grosz sees diversity in discipline as a key to the fellowship program. "This mix of leading lights across the whole spectrum informs and transforms the work of people. I wouldn't want to change that mix very much," she said.

***

MOVING UPSTREAM: The University of California at Irvine has named Rafael L. Bras, an expert in hydrology, climate, and the environment, as the next dean of its engineering school.

Mr. Bras, 57, is a professor of civil and environmental engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he has designed large-scale models used to predict flooding and the evolution of river basins, and he has written on the effects of deforestation in the Amazon on regional climate patterns.

Mr. Bras is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and leads an international panel in charge of a $7.9-billion project to build a system of flood barriers to protect Venice, Italy. A native of Puerto Rico, Mr. Bras received bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degrees from MIT before joining the faculty there in 1976.

"After so many years at MIT, the move was obviously not an easy one," said Mr. Bras. "On the other hand, it offers a tremendous opportunity at an exciting, growing young campus at the school of engineering." He takes his new post on September 1, replacing Nicolaos G. Alexopoulos, who has served as dean of Irvine's Henry Samueli School of Engineering since 1997.

Under Mr. Alexopoulos's watch, the school nearly doubled its enrollment. Mr. Alexopoulos also oversaw the creation of a biomedical-engineering department and Irvine's National Fuel Cell Research Center, Integrated Nanosystems Research Facility, and Center for Pervasive Communications and Computing.

WESTERN SWING: Bruce Shepard has been named as the new president of Western Washington University. He succeeds Karen W. Morse, who retires from the post on September 1.

Mr. Shepard, 61, will be leaving his job as chancellor of the University of Wisconsin at Green Bay, where he has served for seven years. He has also been provost at Eastern Oregon University. Before moving into academic administration, Mr. Shepard was a professor of political science at Oregon State University.

***

MASS MOVEMENT: Robert C. Holub, 58, provost and vice chancellor for academic affairs at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, has been selected to become the next chancellor of the University of Massachusetts' flagship campus at Amherst.

UMass's president, Jack M. Wilson, selected Mr. Holub from among four finalists. The system's Board of Trustees will consider the recommendation at a special meeting this week. Mr. Holub would replace John V. Lombardi, who left Amherst last summer amid controversial plans to shake up the top management of the five-campus Massachusetts system. Mr. Lombardi is now president of the Louisiana State University system.

Mr. Holub, who came to Tennessee in 2006, served in several positions at the University of California at Berkeley, including dean of the undergraduate division of the College of Letters and Science.