Gempesaw named interim arts and sciences dean

Conrado M. Gempesaw, vice provost for academic programs and planning and international programs since 1999, has been named interim dean of the College of Arts and Sciences.

6 p.m., June 29, 2004--Conrado (Bobby) M. Gempesaw, vice provost for academic programs and planning and international programs since 1999, has been named interim dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, replacing Mark Huddleston, who has been selected as the new president of Ohio Wesleyan University.

The appointment is effective Aug. 1, Provost Dan Rich announced today.

A national search for a new dean of the College of Arts and Sciences will be conducted, Rich said, and the search committee will be announced in the near future.

“I am grateful that Bobby Gempesaw is willing to serve as interim dean,” Rich said. “He is an outstanding academic leader with wide-ranging experience and success in working at all levels across the University, and he enjoys the confidence and respect of colleagues on the campus.

“Dr. Gempesaw understands the priorities of the College of Arts and Sciences, and he has worked directly with many of the departments and programs. He will ensure that the college continues to make progress in fulfilling its important missions in instruction, research, scholarship and service.”

Until Gempesaw’s return to the provost’s office, Lesa G. Griffiths, director of the Center for International Studies and professor of animal and food sciences, will serve as senior faculty fellow in the office, providing assistance with academic program reviews and other projects, he said.

Gempesaw’s other duties will be handled by current staff in the provost’s office.

Gempesaw joined the Delaware faculty in 1985 and served as chairperson of the Department of Food and Resource Economics in the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources from 1993-99. He received an outstanding teaching award from the college in 1992

He earned his bachelor's degree in economics from Ateneo de Davao University in the Philippines and later enrolled in a graduate program in industrial economics at the University of Asia and the Pacific. He earned his master's degree from West Virginia University and his doctorate from Pennsylvania State University, both in agricultural economics.

Gempesaw’s fields of research are agricultural finance, production economics and marketing and international trade.

Formerly editor of Agricultural and Resource Economics Review and president of the Northeastern Agricultural and Resource Economics Association, he was a visiting professor at the University of Economics in Poznan, Poland, in 1997 and at Ateneo de Davao University in 1998.

Gempesaw was one of two UD administrators invited last year to help other institutions prepare for reaccredidation evaluations by the Middle States Commission on Higher Education, after the University received a rave review for its institutional self-review and planning document, which was overseen by Gempesaw and Mike Middaugh, assistant vice president for institutional research and planning.

“Bobby Gempesaw is an outstanding choice as interim dean of the College of Arts and Sciences,” Huddleston said. “Not only is he a superb administrator, but he knows the terrain of the college and the university better than almost anyone I can think of.

“Bobby and I have worked closely on a broad range of issues over the past three or four years, including general education, academic program reviews, international studies and graduate and undergraduate student concerns,” Huddleston said. “The college will not miss a beat with Bobby in the dean's office."

Gempesaw said he is “honored to be given the opportunity to lead the University’s largest college,” and he looks forward “with great enthusiasm to working with faculty, staff, and students in the college this coming year."

Huddleston’s election as the 15th president of Ohio Wesleyan University was announced June 12, after a meeting of the school’s Board of Trustees.

UD’s College of Arts and Sciences is organized under the dean, with three associate deans responsible for departments and programs in three general areas: arts and humanities (eight departments and four programs and centers), social science and history (six departments and 12 programs and centers) and natural science and mathematics (10 departments and seven programs and centers).

In 2003, enrollment was 7,985, with 6,832 undergraduates and 1,153 graduate students.

Photo by Kathy F. Atkinson

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