FAS Dean of Social Sciences Search

To: FAS Faculty
Cc: FAS Dean's Office; FAS Steering; FAS Lead Administrators, Operations Managers, and Chair's Assistants; Provost's Office; President's Office; University Cabinet

Dear FAS Colleagues,  

As you learned from the message that I sent earlier today, Alan Gerber will be stepping down from his role as FAS Dean of Social Sciences at the end of this academic or calendar year, returning full-time to his roles as a professor of Political Science and director of ISPS.  

Drawing on recommendations from faculty leaders in the social science division and from the FAS Faculty Senate, and in keeping with FAS practice (see: FAS Dean of Humanities Search Advisory Committee and FAS Dean of Science Search Advisory Committee), I have appointed a faculty committee to advise me on appointing a successor to Alan as the FAS Dean of Social Sciences.  

The composition of the committee is as follows:  

• Steven Berry, David Swensen Professor of Economics, Committee Chair  
• Ana De La O, Associate Professor of Political Science  
• Emily Erikson, Associate Professor of Sociology  
• Anjelica Gonzalez, Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Faculty Director of Tsai CITY (outside member)
• Erik Harms, Associate Professor of Anthropology  
• Jutta Joormann, Professor of Psychology  
• Raffaella Zanuttini, Professor of Linguistics and Department Chair, Linguistics  
• Harrison Zhou, Henry Ford II Professor of Statistics and Data Science, and Department Chair, Statistics and Data Science  
• Staff: Bob Burger, Senior Associate Dean, Faculty of Arts and Sciences  

I have asked this committee to consider as potential candidates for the role of FAS Dean of Social Sciences current full professors in the FAS and those who will be joining the FAS as full professors as the result of recent searches, and to provide me with a list of promising candidates and a sense of their strengths and challenges.  

If you are interested in being considered for this position, I encourage you to reach out to Professor Berry to let him know of your interest.  

Role and responsibilities  

The FAS Dean of Social Sciences oversees the day-to-day well-being and mid- and long-term planning of the departments and programs in the social science division of the FAS. They oversee faculty hiring plans, hiring processes, offers, recruitments, and retentions, as well as faculty promotion, tenure, and retirement for these FAS departments. They chair the social science advisory committee, and with the dean of the FAS, lead the Social Science tenure appointments and promotions committee.  

The FAS Dean of Social Sciences sits on the major FAS committees, including FAS Steering (which oversees matters of FAS policy) and the Faculty Resource Committee (which oversees the allocation of FAS faculty searches). Together with the FAS deans of humanities, science, and SEAS, they meet regularly with the dean of the FAS to coordinate FAS-wide goals, strategies, policies, and practices.  

A more detailed description of the role can be found here.

I look forward to working with the FAS community to identify appropriate candidates for this important role.  

Best,  

Tamar  

Tamar Szabó Gendler   
Dean, Faculty of Arts and Sciences  
Vincent J. Scully Professor of Philosophy   
Professor of Psychology and Cognitive Science  
Yale University