The nearly 600 faculty members in the College and Graduates Studies will have a new leader next September, when David T. McLaughlin Professor of Psychological and Brain Sciences Michael S. Gazzaniga takes over the position of Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, President James Wright announced last week.
Wright described support for Gazzaniga -- currently the Director of the Center of Cognitive Neuroscience and himself a 1961 Dartmouth graduate -- among the search committee charged with his appointment as "unanimous and enthusiastic" in a press release.
"I am delighted that [Gazzaniga] has agreed to be the next Dean of the Faculty at Dartmouth, and I look forward to working with him in this important post," Wright continued.
For his part, Gazzaniga noted that he felt "honored to have this opportunity and eager to work with my colleagues in this new role," in the press release.
Gazzaniga's predecessor, John Wentworth Professor of Psychological and Brain Sciences Jamshed Bharucha, will move onto Tufts University, where he was recently named the incoming provost.
The main responsibilities of the Dean of the Faculty involve supervising faculty members and about 40 academic departments and programs making up the undergraduate college and Graduate Studies. Such matters as consideration of recruitment, promotion, tenure, and the allocation of resources fall under the Dean of the Faculty's job description, according to Bharucha.
Gazzaniga has been at the forefront of research on the brain and mind since his graduate studies years at Caltech, where he began work in "split-brain" processes (communication between the two hemispheres of the brain).
Gazzaniga gained national attention last January when President Bush announced his selection to the 18 member National Bioethics Advisory Panel, a group charged with considering topics including human cloning, the use of embryonic stem cells, and the protection of human subjects in research.
In the early 1980s, Gazzaniga spearheaded the establishment of the field of cognitive neuroscience. Gazzaniga has authored some 200 academic publications over a career spanning positions at the University of California at Davis, Cornell University Medical College and New York University Graduate Schools, among other institutions.
For much of the Summer term, Associate Dean of the Faculty and Professor of Biology Carol Folt will work as Acting Dean of the Faculty. Folt also holds the position of Dean of Graduate Studies.
