Paul Armstrong will step down as dean of the college on June 30, Provost Robert Zimmer announced in an email to the Brown community sent Jan. 13.
According to Zimmer's e-mail, December marked the end of Armstrong's five-year term, though he will stay on for an additional semester for the sake of continuity. He will spend next year as a visiting scholar at the Free University of Berlin, where he will work on two projects: one about the relationship between aesthetics and history and another about the response of 1930s writers to the challenges of fundamentalism. Armstrong will return to Brown the following year to teach in the Department of English.
The search for a new dean of the college has not yet begun, but Zimmer said he hopes a search committee will be appointed soon. The search committee will consist primarily of faculty, but Zimmer said he expects some undergraduate representation. He said finding a replacement for Armstrong by June 30 presents an ambitious timeline, though it is one he would like to pursue.
A commitment to the continued enhancement of undergraduate education will be fundamental in the selection of a new dean, who could come from within or outside the University, Zimmer said.
"We're looking for a dean who would help us both think through and implement the enhancement of undergraduate education," he said. "We're in the process of thinking through exactly what special interests we might need to have. Specifics will certainly evolve over the next couple of months. Transitions are always times of evaluation."
Armstrong has spent 12 years as a dean, including stints at the University of Oregon and the State University of New York at Stony Brook. He said his five years at Brown have been both productive and fun and described his role as dean of the college as "a great position at a wonderful institution." He also said he has enjoyed interacting with students and faculty, emphasizing that his achievements have come only through collaboration with others at the University. Armstrong has stayed active as a professor at Brown, teaching four classes in his five years, but he added that he looks forward to teaching full-time.
"The possibility of trying to transform an institution has been exciting, but it's also been a lot of administrative work that has taken me away from my first loves, which are research and teaching," Armstrong said. "I've had a great time being dean of the college, and I'll miss working with colleagues I've had at the dean's office and in other offices on campus."
Administrators agreed that Armstrong's presence in the dean's office will be missed. Zimmer said Armstrong oversaw a period of great activity and evolution for the University, including the hiring of 100 new professors, the upgrading of instructional equipment and the expansion of multidisciplinary initiatives. Zimmer emphasized Armstrong's commitment to ensuring that investments made in the University would benefit undergraduates, citing the First Year Seminar program as an example of the dean's dedication to students. Armstrong himself considers this program his most visible accomplishment and the one of which he is most proud.
"When I arrived five years ago, one of the few ways that Brown seemed not to live up to the promise it made to students is that first-year students could not get small classes at all," he said. "The class size numbers for freshmen were not what you want at a college that emphasizes close collaboration between students and faculty."
Since the First Year Seminar program's inception four years ago, it has grown to offer about 60 seminars per year and enroll over 600 first years.
"It's been very popular with students and very well received by faculty, and I really think it's going to endure," Armstrong said.
Armstrong said he views improvements made in advising as another of his important accomplishments. First-year advising has always been strong, but he said he has worked to make significant improvements to sophomore advising. Since the beginning of Armstrong's term, the percentage of sophomores with identified advisers has increased, as has the number of sophomore advisers.
Other advising improve-ments include a more effective integration of career counseling and liberal arts advising, Armstrong said.
"I've worked hard to break down barriers between the career office and academic advisers and also make career counseling at Brown part of the way you think of a liberal education," he said.
Zimmer agreed that career counseling at Brown needed improvement, and that Armstrong succeeded in securing needed resources for this effort. The career office now offers a "much more robust type of services," Zimmer said.
Armstrong named improve-ments to undergraduate research, particularly enhancing Undergraduate Teaching and Research Assistantships, as his third major accomplishment as dean. He described this commitment to undergraduate research as "a work in progress" that he hopes his replacement will pursue.
Armstrong's legacy, however, extends beyond curricular, advising and research improvements, students said. Emily Blatter '07, who worked with Armstrong when she chaired the Committee of Academic and Administrative Affairs last year, described him as extremely supportive and genuinely interested in students.
"He really loves meeting with students, finding out what they're about, and helping them to solve any issues," Blatter said. "We could be in his office forever. He would talk everything out with us."
Charley Cummings '06, who chaired the Committee of Academic and Administrative Affairs two years ago, stressed Armstrong's strong understanding of Brown's academic culture.
"He's done a fantastic job at pushing forward with the New Curriculum and not attempting to undercut the very ideas on which it was founded," Cummings said. "This is cliché, but whoever is coming in has definitely got big shoes to fill."
