Dear colleagues,
I am pleased to introduce to you the inaugural faculty of the School of Civic Life and Leadership. These nine leaders, all drawn from the ranks of tenured faculty in the College of Arts and Sciences, will have the extraordinary opportunity to articulate the vision for this new school and to begin building the necessary infrastructure that is required to operate any academic unit.
Sarah Treul Roberts, Bowman and Gordon Gray distinguished term professor in political science and faculty director of the College’s Program for Public Discourse, will serve as the interim director and dean of SCiLL until a permanent director and dean is hired. The Program for Public Discourse itself will become part of SCiLL.
Joining Professor Treul Roberts are:
- Inger Brodey, associate professor, English and comparative literature
- Kurt Gray, professor, psychology and neuroscience
- Fabian Heitsch, professor, physics and astronomy
- Mark Katz, distinguished professor, music
- Matthew Kotzen, professor, philosophy
- Christian Lundberg, associate professor, communication
- Jason Roberts, professor, political science
- Molly Worthen, associate professor, history
These are all half-time appointments, with the other half being in each faculty member’s home department. Because there is keen interest in seeing the school up and running as soon as possible, these appointments are effective immediately. These faculty have my gratitude for agreeing to take on this endeavor and the extra responsibilities it entails, especially in the middle of the semester and with a timeline that is accelerated beyond the norm for establishing a new school.
I’m assigning this group four critical tasks: 1) Define the vision for the new school, drawing on Carolina’s strengths; 2) identify the search committee members who will lead the search for the permanent director and dean of SCiLL and begin that search; 3) initiate the groundwork for developing the school’s curriculum; 4) build the administrative infrastructure that academic units need to operate effectively.
I have said since the beginning that creating this new school will be a faculty-driven process, and these initial faculty will be the ones blazing that trail. I want to thank all who applied to be part of the inaugural faculty; we had an exceptionally strong talent pool from which to choose. I have every confidence that the foundational work done by our pioneering nine will lead to a school that showcases Carolina’s strengths in discourse, civic life and democracy.
Sincerely,
Jim
James W.C. White
Craver Family Dean
College of Arts and Sciences