Having brought the graduate school to a more prestigious position than ever before, Dean of the Graduate School Karen Newman will leave her position in May after a three-year tenure.
Newman signed on as dean in 2001 with the intention of serving in the position for only three years, she said. Newman has held a faculty position at Brown since 1978 and did not see her appointment to dean as a career change, but rather a three-year term during which she had the opportunity to help shape an exciting period in Brown's history.
A recently appointed search committee has called for candidate nominations to succeed Newman, due March 31 and will continue the search process from there, said Provost Robert Zimmer.
Graduate school applications have increased by 46 percent since Newman began her term, and the selectivity of graduate school admission is now at 17 percent, almost equal to the college's 15.9 percent. Newman attributes these changes to the graduate school's navigable new Web site and to her administrative review of the graduate school, which included adding budgetary administration and standardizing forms. In general, Newman said, "the buzz is out there" about Brown's investment in expanding faculty, enacting need-blind admissions and enabling a stronger community for its graduate students.
Newman has been lauded most recently for her work with the development of the Cogut Humanities Center and the Institute for Archaeology and the Ancient World and has invigorated the graduate school through her commitment to the Plan for Academic Enrichment and active outlook on educational development, Zimmer said.
With funds from the Plan for Academic Enrichment and budget reorganization, Newman raised graduate student teaching assistant stipends to equal mid-range salaries among competitor schools. She also worked to build community around graduate research by applying for and instating five Mellon Graduate Workshops a year. These seminars bring students writing their dissertations together to share ideas and expedite a process that is often isolating and lengthy.
"I came in ready to enact the Plan for Academic Enrichment and through that, strengthen the mission of the University," Newman said.
Newman's colleagues were full of praise for the departing dean. Dean of the College Paul Armstrong said Newman fully understood the participatory enterprise that is learning.
"If we could clone Karen Newman, that would be great," Armstrong said.
Newman understood the role of the graduate school in "making the fabric of the University College strong," Zimmer said. He gave Newman credit for putting the graduate school on its feet with her high level of academic standards and values.
"It's really important that we see a triangulation, not just a dyad," Newman said, reflecting on the importance of a relationship between undergraduates, graduate students and faculty. A strong graduate school helps Brown attract top-notch faculty and enriches the experience of undergraduate students, particularly those involved in research, she said.
Even as a dean, Newman remained committed and connected to undergraduate education, having participated in an Undergraduate Teaching and Research Assistantship and having read several undergraduate theses while dean. On top of her administrative duties, Newman has continued to teach one class per year in the departments of English and comparative literature, where she has a joint appointment.
After a year's leave, during which she will work on a research project tentatively titled "French Shakespeare," Newman will return to Brown to teach.
