Newly minted College Dean Rebecca Bushnell has already stamped her character on the office vacated by Richard Beeman at the end of last year.
On the office furniture, at any rate.
"The first thing I'm going to do is actually spend some time talking to people," she said, explaining her decision to replace an executive desk with the conference table and chairs that now sit in its place. "It's always my feeling that... things only get done if people want to do them."
Having most recently served as Associate Dean of Arts and Letters -- a post whose responsibilities included recruiting many of the faculty members she will now lead at the College -- Bushnell has built a record of administrative service and excellence in the classroom during her two decades at Penn.
A former chairwoman of the Graduate Group in English, the School of Arts and Sciences' Personnel Committee and the Undergraduate Committee on Education, Bushnell directed a campus-wide Presidential Commission on Strengthening the Community in 1993 and 1994.
Bushnell has received a "Teaching with Technology" grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, as well as the University's Lindback Award for outstanding teaching.
As she prepares to marshal College faculty and students to tackle questions of curricular reform, Bushnell boasts a reputation for leadership and consensus-building.
"She's extraordinarily effective at working with different groups," School of Arts and Sciences Dean Samuel Preston said, noting that "curricular reform is probably, over a two-year period, going to be her greatest challenge -- amalgamating the pilot curriculum with the regular curriculum."
Elements of the experimental pilot curriculum -- now in its fourth year -- will be slowly incorporated into the standard College curriculum as its better features are adopted, according to Bushnell.
"The experiment's not over yet," Bushnell said, adding that she strongly supports enhancing undergraduate research opportunities at the College.
"I do feel very strongly about undergraduate research," Bushnell said, noting that, based on surveys completed by graduating seniors, students enjoyed "doing their own work, problem-solving and getting their hands dirty."
And according to Bushnell, there are research projects "waiting to happen" in Philadelphia's archives, libraries and government offices.
Preston said that the English professor should have no trouble rallying the entire College, including the natural sciences.
"She shows a great ability across the board to understand what people are doing and how it can be best reflected in the curriculum," he said.
Admitting that hard science is, despite her intellectual sympathy for her colleagues, "not my idea of a good time," Bushnell said she was committed to the College's less humanities-oriented departments.
On her own academic turf, Bushnell is well-positioned to continue tweaking the College's writing program.
"Bushnell was also the active director of the writing program herself, so she knows the writing program, she knows what it needed," founder and faculty director of the Kelly Writers House Al Filreis said. "She's been incredibly supportive."
