The committee's report to President Patrick Harker included the recommendation that a position of vice provost for graduate studies be created "to provide support, oversight and vision and to eliminate administrative barriers to multidisciplinary education and research."
“Earlier this spring,” Rich said, “Carolyn Thoroughgood made known her intention to complete her term as vice provost for research and graduate studies on June 30, 2008. The timing seemed right because she has completed much of her agenda for strengthening those offices, has other priorities for her own work next year, including serving as president of the Oceanography Society, and recognizes that this would enable an early implementation of the Strategic Planning Committee recommendation.
"I am thankful to Carolyn for all she has accomplished as vice provost," he said, "and I have asked her to serve next year as special assistant to the provost for program development to assist me with the implementation of a number of the University's partnership and collaborative initiatives that she helped to mobilize."
"The staff of the Research and Graduate Studies Office are extremely dedicated and talented, and I'm pleased at all we've accomplished during the past three years," Thoroughgood said. "I now look forward to exciting challenges ahead in fostering the development of innovative new interdisciplinary partnerships and programs that will provide UD students with the very best education available, to prepare them well for the world of the future."
Under the new organization, which will be effective July 1:
• Mark Barteau, Robert L. Pigford Chair of Chemical Engineering, will become senior vice provost for research and strategic initiatives; and
• Debra Hess Norris, Henry Francis du Pont Chair in Fine Arts and associate dean in the College of Arts and Sciences, will become vice provost for graduate and professional education.
"These talented individuals have already contributed much to this University, and I am very pleased that they have each agreed to take on new assignments that will help mobilize the University on its path to prominence," Harker said. "It is particularly appropriate that Mark Barteau and Debra Hess Norris, who co-chaired the Strategic Planning Committee and worked so hard on shaping the vision for this institution's future, are now taking key roles in making it happen."
In his new post as senior vice provost for research and strategic initiatives, Barteau also will be working closely with Harker to establish global research collaborations and partnerships and to achieve high visibility for the University's research and multidisciplinary scholarship nationally and internationally.
Barteau said, "The first initiative in the strategic plan addresses the need to take research to a level never before seen at the University of Delaware. I am very excited by the opportunity to play a leadership role in this effort."
Norris brings substantial credentials in graduate and professional education to her new post, Rich said.
"As chair of Art Conservation and head of its graduate program, Debra Hess Norris has been the leader of one of the University's finest graduate and professional programs. As associate dean, she has initiated important interdisciplinary collaborations in areas related to material culture, the arts, and the social sciences," Rich said. "Her charge is to enrich the graduate and professional programs across the campus, enhance the educational experiences and opportunities for our students and foster the creation of new programs where the University can achieve international prominence."
Norris said, "I look forward greatly to working in partnership with our administrators, chairs, directors, faculty, staff and very talented graduate students to achieve higher levels of excellence and visibility, and to promote new opportunities for fieldwork and international and multidisciplinary study.”
Mark Barteau
Barteau is the Robert L. Pigford Chair of Chemical Engineering and from 2000-2007 served as chairperson of the Department of Chemical Engineering, which is consistently ranked among the nation's finest. He is a member of the prestigious National Academy of Engineering and was the 2004 winner of the Francis Alison Award, the University's highest faculty honor. Recently, he was appointed director of the University of Delaware Energy Institute, which is designed to marshal and expand the University's science, engineering and public policy expertise in new and emerging energy technologies.
Debra Hess Norris
Norris is the Henry Francis du Pont Chair in Fine Arts, chairperson of the Department of Art Conservation and associate dean for social sciences and history in the College of Arts and Sciences. After July 1, she will continue to serve as chairperson of the Department of Art Conservation.
A member of the UD faculty since 1982, Norris is a world-renowned authority on photographic preservation, and has consulted on projects ranging from the original negatives of the Dead Sea Scrolls to collections of works by Thomas Eakins and Andy Warhol. Her expertise led the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to create a national initiative in the conservation of photographs. She has consulted internationally and has provided on-site teaching in Australia, Japan, Scandinavia, and Russia, among others. Working in partnership with seven graduate programs at UD, she is the project director for a $500,000 challenge grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to support graduate education in material culture and to promote public interest in the preservation of America's cultural heritage.
She is a graduate of the University of Delaware, receiving a bachelor of arts degree in art history and chemistry in 1977 and a master's degree from the Winterthur/UD Program in Art Conservation in 1980. She was inducted into the University's Alumni Wall of Fame in 2002. In April, she received the 2008 American Institute for Conservation University Products Award for Distinguished Achievement.
