Beeman leaves behind long legacy at Penn

When College of Arts and Sciences Dean Richard Beeman first came to Penn more than 30 years ago, he came to teach. Since then, he has risen through the University's administrative ranks, serving as history department chair, associate dean for humanities and social sciences and, finally, dean of the College.

But now, after a five-year term as the head of the College, Beeman has decided to give up his administrative duties and return to what he loves most -- teaching and scholarship.

"I've served for sixteen years as either a department chair or a dean of one sort or other, and this has been absolutely the best and most satisfying administrative job that I've had, and I feel very good about the College and the state of the College," Beeman said. "I've given a lot of myself to service to Penn over these past many years and I really and truly am looking forward to returning to the things that I went into this profession for."

During his five-year term -- which School of Arts and Sciences Dean Samuel Preston called "extraordinarily effective" -- Beeman has spearheaded a number of important College initiatives, including the revolutionary pilot program, which was created as an alternative to the standard undergraduate curriculum.

"It was his brainchild," Preston said, calling the new curriculum Beeman's "most out-of-the-box initiative."

"To make it work required a tremendous amount of energy and persuasive power, and I think elements of that experiment will enrich the undergraduate curriculum for many years to come. Whether or not the pilot is adopted wholesale, elements of it will certainly move into the regular curriculum."

Beeman also launched a major overhaul of the College advising system and restructured the freshman advising program.

"We had an advising system that was badly in need of reform, and he did it," Preston said. "It wasn't easy. It required a lot of organizational skill, and he put his shoulder to the wheel."

University President Judith Rodin stressed Beeman's courage in "putting [his] brainchild on the line."

"That takes a lot of strength, and he has been marvelous at that," she said.

Beeman's tenure also saw the creation of the Speaking Across the University, an oral communications program now called Communication Within the Curriculum.

Beeman said that his experience as dean "has been, unambiguously, a good one."

"I feel really good about the things that we've been able to do," he said. "I think the students in the College feel a sense of confidence in being students in the College. That was not always the case some years ago."

Beeman attributed this change to the cooperative efforts of his colleagues and the changing role of a liberal arts education.

"I think I became dean at a time when the importance of an arts and sciences education was becoming more and more clear to more people," he said.

"I think I also became dean at a time when... our faculty was really ready to make a commitment to undergraduate education as never before... I think all of those things have done a lot to basically improve the mood of both faculty and students in arts and sciences," he added.

In his new role at Oxford University, Beeman will be giving just one weekly lecture and meeting with groups of students in tutorial sessions, a teaching load that he called "light."

"It's an earned sabbatical," Rodin said of Beeman's temporary leave from Penn. "As long as we don't lose him to Oxford permanently, I'm delighted for him."

"It's always good to get away and it's always good to come back," Beeman said.

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