Beeman out, Bushnell in as dean

College of Arts and Sciences Dean Richard Beeman will step down at the end of the academic year, passing his administrative post on to Associate Dean of Arts and Letters Rebecca Bushnell, University officials announced yesterday.

Beeman, who has led the College since 1997, plans to complete a year-long visiting professorship at Oxford University, beginning next fall. His new position -- the prestigious Harold Vyvyan Harmsworth Distinguished Professorship of American History -- is one of two visiting professorships offered annually to American scholars.

Beeman said that he definitely plans to return to Penn in 2004 as a history professor but will not resume his current role.

"After sixteen years of pretty much nonstop administration, I am very much looking forward to just diving into my historical scholarship again and maybe slowing down a little bit as well," Beeman said.

Bushnell, who will officially take over for Beeman on July 1, is a longtime member of the Penn community and has served in a number of roles both within in the School of Arts and Sciences and on a University-wide level. In addition to serving as an associate dean, she is also the acting faculty director of the College Writing Program and a freshman advisor.

Bushnell first came to Penn as a lecturer in English in 1982 and became a full professor in 1995. She has served as an associate dean for the last five years.

She has held a number of other administrative positions, including chairwoman of the Graduate Group in English and the SAS Personnel Committee. She also directed a campus-wide Presidential Commission on Strengthening the Community in 1993 and 1994, chaired the Undergraduate Committee on Education and was the recipient of a National Endowment for the Humanities "Teaching with Technology" grant and the University's Lindback Award for outstanding teaching.

Administrators said they are confident in Bushnell's abilities and have high expectations for her term as dean. "I did a good deal of consultation, and Rebecca kind of emerged as the consensus choice," said SAS Dean Samuel Preston, who selected Bushnell. "I think the fact that she's been so successful in a leadership role was the single most important factor. And she's successful from the point of view of faculty and the point of view of students, and for moving programs forward."

"I'm just delighted," University President Judith Rodin said of Bushnell's appointment. "She is enormously talented. She has great judgement. She is extraordinarily smart, [and] she has wonderful people skills. She is very diplomatic."

As associate dean for arts and letters, Bushnell oversaw planning and budgeting responsibilities in the humanities departments. She also worked closely with Beeman in revamping the College's writing program.

Bushnell was also involved in drafting the SAS strategic plan and has shown "a great vision for undergraduate education and where it is going," Rodin said.

"She's a great teacher herself, as is Rick, and has been concerned about undergraduate education for a long, long time," History Professor and former University President Sheldon Hackney said. "I think she's just terrific."

According to Preston, the search for Beeman's successor has "been in the works for the fall semester" and was strictly internal.

"There was really an outstanding set of possible candidates here already, and I thought it would be much better to choose someone who was familiar with the Penn environment," Preston said.

Although Bushnell admits that she was at first reluctant about accepting the position, she described it as "a wonderful challenge."

"I've been at Penn for 20 years, but this is an entirely new role for me in which I can really have a role in shaping undergraduate education,"she said.

Bushnell said her first task as dean will be to meet with faculty and student leaders to get a sense of their priorities.

"The first thing I do when I take on a new job like this is I spend some time meeting with people and listening to what's on their mind," she said.

Although she plans to focus on some of the issues that Beeman was particularly committed to -- especially the further development and assessment of the pilot curriculum program, which Beeman launched in the fall of 2000 -- Bushnell also has some other priorities. Among those are increasing student involvement in research in the social sciences and the humanities and strengthening the College's language program, she said.

"I'm going to find my own way," Bushnell said. "I'm a very different person from Dean Beeman."

"I have great ambitions to make Penn even more than it is now -- a place where people come and have an unforgettable four years," she added.

Another important project for Bushnell will be finding an effective way to promote academic integrity, she said.

"It seems to be even more pressing as time goes on, and it's something I want to pay very serious attention to.... I think we really need to have a sustained attention to how we can take a crack at this problem."

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