Wollacott named associate dean

Wollacott named associate dean of Arts & Sciences

by Susan Griffith

John Bassett, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, has appointed Angela Woollacott as an associate dean. Woollacott, associate professor of history, joins Samuel Savin, also an associate dean on the college's administrative team. She succeeds Danielle Ripich, who became dean of the College of Health Professionals at the Medical University of South Carolina in August.

"In the six years since I've been dean, I've seen Angela develop into a colleague with an increasingly broad overview of University and College issues and into an excellent administrator," says Bassett.

He adds that she is a highly regarded historian: "I believe associate deans should be persons respected as academic leaders, and she is."

Woollacott joined CWRU's faculty in 1988 after obtaining her Ph.D. in history from the University of California at Santa Barbara. A native of Australia, Woollacott received her B.A. (with honors) in history from the University of Adelaide in South Australia.

She is a scholar of women's history. She wrote On Her Their Lives Depend: Munitions Workers in the Great War, edited Gendering War Talk, and is nearing completion of White Colonials, Modernity and the Metropolis: Australian Women in London 1870-1940.

Woollacott has held several leadership roles at CWRU, including associate director of the Baker-Nord Center for the Humanities, director of graduate studies and associate chair of the Department of History, and director of the Women's Studies Program.

"I'm excited by the challenges of this position and very curious to see what the University looks like from this perspective," said Woollacott.

She will collaborate with several of the college's committees, exploring general educational issues and curricular changes.

As chair of the subcommittee on outcomes, she will work closely with CWRU's Department of English in a pilot program to assess the educational growth of CWRU's students.

Because all first-year students are required to take English, the college will focus on writing skills in this assessment, looking at first-year students' ability to think critically and mount arguments within their writing. Students will be assessed at the beginning of fall semester and at the end. In spring semester, seniors will have their writing skills reviewed and compared to writings of the first-year students.

She also will recruit faculty members in arts and sciences to participate in the Office of Undergraduate Admission's fall open houses.

Woollacott also will chair a search committee for an artist who will hold a joint appointment between the college and the Cleveland Institute of Art.