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WELLESLEY, Mass.
-- Wellesley College has announced the appointments
of Joanne Berger-Sweeney, biological sciences, and Adele
Wolfson, professor of chemistry, as Associate Deans of
the College, effective July 1, 2004. The announcement
was made by President Diana Chapman Walsh and Andrew
Shennan, the newly appointed Dean of the College who
has served as associate dean since 1999.
Professor
Berger-Sweeney has been a member of the Wellesley faculty
since 1991. She received her B.A. from Wellesley and
her doctorate in neurotoxicology from Johns Hopkins University
and was a postdoctoral fellow at the Institut National
de la Sante et de la Recherche Medicale in Paris, France.
Berger-Sweeney is a distinguished and prolific neuroscientist
whose research has been recognized by (among other honors)
a National Science Foundation Young Investigator award.
She is a Fellow of the International Behavioral Neuroscience
Society, and she directs the Society for Neuroscience’s
Minority Neuroscience Fellowship Program, a federally
funded training grant to give predoctoral and postdoctoral
fellowships to underrepresented minorities engaging in
neuroscience research. At Wellesley, in addition to her
teaching in the Biological Sciences Department, she has
been one of the driving forces behind the college’s
recently established neuroscience major. She has also
served on a wide range of committees, including the Dean
of Students Search Committee, the Board of Appeals, the
Committee on Faculty Appointments, the President’s
Advisory Committee, the Committee on Curriculum and Instruction,
and the Presidential Search Committee.
Professor
Wolfson has taught at Wellesley since 1985. She
received her A.B. from Brandeis University and her Ph.D.
in biochemistry from Columbia University. She has authored
or co-authored (often with undergraduate students) an
extensive list of articles. Her research interests center
around protein structure and function, and her work has
been supported by grants from the National Science Foundation
and other agencies. Wolfson has held fellowships at universities
in France and Australia as well as at Columbia, MIT,
and Brandeis. Among other awards, she has received a
National Science Foundation Career Advancement Award
and an American Association of University Women Marie
Curie Postdoctoral Fellowship. Wolfson has directed Wellesley’s
program in biological chemistry and has also been an
influential and widely respected leader in biochemistry
education beyond Wellesley. She was co-founder of Wellesley’s
Minority Mentorships in Science program. She was faculty
director of the Science Center from 1999 to 2002, and
is currently the faculty director of the Pforzheimer
Learning and Teaching Center. She has served on numerous
committees including the Committee on Faculty Appointments
and the Committee on Curriculum and Instruction.
"Joanne
and Adele are outstanding scholar-teachers who have served
with distinction in a variety of important capacities
and have earned the respect of faculty and other colleagues
throughout the college,” stated Walsh and Shennan
in a written announcement of the appointments. “They
possess in abundance the personal, intellectual and administrative
qualities that the dean’s office will need in order
to advance the ambitious agenda that has emerged in the
process of selecting a new dean of the college, in the
work of the Committee on Academic Excellence, and in
many other conversations and committees over the past
year."
"This
agenda will challenge us to pay renewed attention to
the structure of our departmental and interdepartmental
programs as well as to our academic program writ large;
to make new efforts to recruit and retain a talented,
committed and diverse faculty; to re-commit ourselves
to the highest standards of academic excellence (for
faculty and students alike); and to find new ways of
strengthening the sense of community and collegiality
within the faculty,” continued Walsh and Shennan. “In
all these respects, Joanne and Adele have the experience
and capacity to make a significant impact. Both are highly
regarded and productive scientists, with a deep commitment
to the teaching and mentoring of students and to the
goal of making Wellesley a more diverse and inclusive
community. Both have extensive international experience
and have been engaged intensively in the work of their
respective professional organizations. Here at Wellesley
both have consistently demonstrated a breadth of interest
and of perspective that, notwithstanding the proximity
of their own disciplines, amply qualify them to play
this important leadership role for the college as a whole.
We are grateful to Joanne and Adele for agreeing to take
up this service and look forward with great pleasure
to working with them in their new positions."
Since 1875, Wellesley College has been a leader in providing
an excellent liberal-arts education for women who will
make a difference in the world. Its 500-acre campus near
Boston is home to 2,300 undergraduate students from all
50 states and 68 countries. For more information, go to
www.wellesley.edu.
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