Dear colleagues,
I am pleased to announce the appointment of Ian F. McNeely as the College of Arts and Sciences’ next senior associate dean for undergraduate education. He will start his new position on Aug. 12.
Professor McNeely comes to Carolina from the University of Oregon, where he has been on the faculty since 2002, most recently as faculty-in-residence at Oregon’s Clark Honors College. He has held several administrative roles, including serving as founding executive director of the School of Global Studies and Languages, head of the department of German and Scandinavian, and associate dean for undergraduate education in the College of Arts and Sciences. He is also a professor of history, and at Carolina he will join our history faculty.
In his various roles, Professor McNeely has fostered numerous curricular and pedagogical innovations in the arts and sciences. As inaugural associate dean for undergraduate education at Oregon, he coordinated 45 degree programs that served 11,000 majors and launched a “General Education Renaissance” initiative to reinvigorate the general education curriculum. As part of that initiative, he funded active learning enhancements, new course designs and interdisciplinary thematic course clusters. He also led academic program planning for the Tykeson College to Careers and Student Success Building that opened in the center of the UO campus in 2019.
His research areas include European history, world history and the history of knowledge. His latest work is The University Unfettered: Public Higher Education in an Age of Disruption, forthcoming from Columbia University Press in 2025. Professor McNeely received his M.A. and Ph.D. in history from the University of Michigan and his A.B. in history from Harvard University.
Once again, I would like to thank Abigail Panter for her 10 years of service in this position. We are indebted to her for the work she has done to launch the IDEAs in Action curriculum and support the “Strengthen Student Success” pillar of the University’s Carolina Next strategic plan, among her many other accomplishments. We extend our best wishes to her as she returns to her research and teaching in her home department of psychology and neuroscience.
I would like to thank the members of the search committee for their outstanding work in identifying top candidates for this position. Committee chair Jaye Cable, senior associate dean for natural sciences and mathematics, was joined by Karen Gil, Lee G. Pedersen Distinguished Professor, department of psychology and neuroscience, former dean of the College of Arts and Sciences; Nick Siedentop, director of undergraduate curricula, Office of Undergraduate Education; Marc Cohen, teaching associate professor, department of English and comparative literature; Luca Flabbi, professor, department of economics, and Chloe Russell, associate dean of academic advising, Office of Undergraduate Education.
We look forward to welcoming Professor McNeely to Carolina this summer.
Sincerely,
Jim White
Craver Family DeanCollege of Arts and Sciences