Public presentations scheduled for UW-Madison provost finalists

Four finalists for provost of the University of Wisconsin–Madison will give public presentations during the week of March 24.

A 17-member committee made up of faculty, staff and students and chaired by Joan Schmit, professor at the Wisconsin School of Business, screened a pool of applicants and recommended the four candidates to Chancellor Rebecca Blank.

The provost is the chief academic officer of the university, responsible for overseeing and coordinating the curricular, student and faculty life on campus. In the absence of the chancellor, the provost assumes the role of chief executive.

The finalists are:

Robert A. Blouin, dean of the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy and Vaughn and Nancy Bryson Distinguished Professor, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

As dean, Blouin reports directly to the provost and serves as the primary chief executive officer of the pharmacy school. Before coming to UNC in July of 2003, he was a faculty member and administrator at the University of Kentucky College of Pharmacy from 1978 to 2003. During that period, Blouin served as the associate dean for research and graduate education (1997-2003) and executive director of the Office for Economic Development and Innovations Management (2000-03). His research interests are in the area of pharmacokinetics and drug metabolism.

Blouin holds a pharmacy doctorate from the College of Pharmacy at the University of Kentucky.

Sarah C. Mangelsdorf, dean of the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences, professor, Department of Psychology, Northwestern University.

Mangelsdorf previously served as the Harry E. Preble Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She joined the University of Illinois psychology department in 1991 and served as associate provost from 2001-03 and head of the Department of Psychology from 2003-04. She also served four years as an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Michigan. Her research interests include social-emotional development, attachment, temperament and family systems.

Mangelsdorf holds a doctorate in child psychology from the University of Minnesota.

Katherine S. Newman, James B. Knapp Dean and Professor of Sociology, Krieger School of Arts & Sciences, Johns Hopkins University.

Newman oversees 22 academic departments and 10 interdepartmental programs, from the natural sciences to the humanities, social sciences and the arts. Newman was previously the Malcolm Stevenson Forbes ’41 Professor in the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs and the Department of Sociology at Princeton University, where she had taught since 2004. Earlier, she taught at Harvard University, where she was the first dean of social science at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. Her areas of research include lives of the working poor and mobility up and down the economic ladder.

Newman holds a doctorate in anthropology from the University of California, Berkeley.

Julie Underwood, dean of the School of Education at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

Underwood served as interim UW–Madison provost from January 2009 to July 2009. She has been dean of the UW–Madison School of Education since 2005. Underwood taught at UW–Madison from 1986 to 1995 on the faculty of the Department of Educational Administration (now Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis) before leaving to become dean of Miami University’s School of Education and Allied Professions. From 1998 to 2005, she was associate executive director and general counsel for the National School Boards Association in Washington, D.C.

She holds a doctorate in educational leadership from the University of Florida, and her Juris Doctor from Indiana University.

The candidates will meet with faculty, staff, students, administrators and other groups, giving presentations open to the entire campus community. With supervisory approval, staff members may attend in pay status if the event falls within their normal work hours. Presentation dates are:

Blouin, 10:30 a.m., March 24, Plenary Room (1310) Grainger Hall

Underwood, 10:30 a.m. March 25, Plenary Room (1310), Grainger Hall

Mangelsdorf, 10:30 a.m. March 26, Plenary Room (1310), Grainger Hall

Newman, 10:30 a.m. March 28, Plenary Room (1310), Grainger Hall

The candidates’ presentations will be recorded and posted to the university’s search site, where members of the university community can submit feedback on the finalists.

The successful candidate will succeed Provost and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs Paul M. DeLuca Jr., who announced in June that he would return to the faculty.