Appointment of Acting Dean of Faculty of Arts and Sciences–Newark

December 12, 2011

Members of the University Community:

I am pleased to announce the appointment of Dr. Jan Ellen Lewis as acting dean of the Rutgers Faculty of Arts and Sciences–Newark, effective December 24, 2011. Jan will take over as acting dean when dean Philip Yeagle assumes the interim chancellorship of the Newark Campus.

Dr. Lewis, who served as acting dean in 2007 during the national search that culminated in Dean Yeagle’s appointment, currently serves as senior associate dean and professor of history. Her scholarship specializes in colonial and early national American history, with a particular interest in gender, race, and politics.

Dr. Lewis is the author of The Pursuit of Happiness: Family and Values in Jefferson’s Virginia, coauthor of Of the People: A History of the United States, and coeditor of An Emotional History of the United States; Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson: History, Memory, and Civic Culture; and The Revolution of 1800: Democracy, Race, and the New Republic, as well as many articles and reviews. Dr. Lewis has held fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Philadelphia Center for Early American Studies, the Center for the History of Freedom at Washington University, and the International Center for Jefferson Studies. She has chaired the New Jersey Historical Commission and the American Historical Association’s Committee on Women Historians and has served on many boards, including the Advisory Board of the International Center for Jefferson Studies and the editorial board of the American Historical Review. She is an elected member of the American Antiquarian Society and a Fellow of the Society of American Historians.

Jan has brought wisdom, humor, deep knowledge of the campus, strong relationships with the faculty and staff, and the highest academic values to her work as senior associate dean. She is marvelous at unraveling difficult administrative issues and enabling effective decision making.

Please join me in welcoming Jan to her new position and to the leadership team at Rutgers.

Richard L. McCormick
President
Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey