Cornell University Provost Biddy Martin announced today (Sept. 5) that she has appointed a faculty committee to begin the search for a new dean of the College of Arts and Sciences.

Martin said the committee, which she will chair, will begin meeting this week, and its first tasks will be to develop a list of the qualifications and challenges for the next dean.

Committee members include: Hector Abruna, the E. M. Chamot Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Biology; Kaushik Basu, the C. Marks Professor of International Studies and Professor of Economics; Jeffrey Doyle, professor of plant biology and the Hays and James Clark Director of the Office of Undergraduate Biology; Debra Fried, associate professor of English; Sandra Greene, professor and chair of the Department of History; Salah Hassan, associate professor of Africana studies and professor and chair of the Department of History of Art; Ronald Hoy, professor and chair of the Department of Neurobiology and Behavior; Peter Kahn, professor of mathematics; Peter Katzenstein, the W. S. Carpenter Jr. Professor of International Studies; Edward Lawler, dean of the School of Industrial and Labor Relations; Peter Lepage, professor and chair of the Department of Physics; Sally McConnell-Ginet, professor and acting chair of the Department of Linguistics; and James Webster, the G. Smith Professor of Music.

"The College of Arts and Sciences and its liberal arts core are the heart of this great university," Martin said. "The strength of its research and teaching programs is vital to our other colleges and to the university as a whole. `The job of the dean is a complex and demanding one. We have a strong search committee, and I am confident we will find an outstanding dean."

The College of Arts and Sciences is the largest and most complex of Cornell's 13 colleges, with approximately 4,000 undergraduates, 1,500 graduate students, 600 faculty members and 300 staff members. Composed of 28 departments and 17 interdisciplinary programs that study and teach the humanities and the arts, the basic sciences and mathematics, and the social sciences, the college provides a liberal arts education to students from all the undergraduate colleges. Physics, chemistry, astronomy, music, English, German studies, philosophy, Romance studies, Asian studies, and theatre, film and dance are among its highly ranked programs.Philip E. Lewis, the Harold Tanner Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, has resigned effective June 30, 2003. He was appointed acting dean in July 1995, named dean in July 1996 and reappointed in 2000. After taking a sabbatic leave during the academic year 2003-04, he plans to return to the faculty in the Department of Romance Studies.

"Dean Lewis' well-known commitment to academic rigor and quality has served the college and its programs well," Martin said. "He has worked indefatigably for the college and university, and he has made significant contributions to both. Phil is also an outstanding scholar whose publications and work as editor of the highly regarded journal Diacritics helped shape an entire branch of theoretical discussion in literary studies."

President Hunter Rawlings said: "During Phil Lewis' tenure as dean, the College of Arts and Sciences has made many excellent faculty appointments that have greatly strengthened the college and the university. The quality of these new faculty members, some of them at the senior level, is testimony to Dean Lewis' high standards and his resolute recruiting."

Martin noted that Lewis deserves substantial credit for a number of important initiatives that were undertaken in the college during his tenure as dean. Those included: the college's success in raising $29.1 million during the university's $170.9 million undergraduate scholarship campaign; curriculum changes, including changes in the undergraduate distribution requirements; the dissolution of the Department of Modern Languages and integration of language instruction with literature and cultural studies; the addition of career advising to an integrated Office of Admissions and Advising; the $19 million "Lincoln Hall Renaissance"; the $12 million renovation of White Hall as the new home for the departments of Government, Near Eastern Studies and History of Art and the Visual Studies Program; reconfiguration of space throughout the college; a major study of space and facilities' needs for the physical sciences; creation of the Visual Studies Program; renewed commitment to the Program in Ethics and Public Life; and the reinvigoration of sociology.

In addition, Martin said, Lewis has managed the college's resources very successfully during tight financial times, enabling the college's departments and programs to build a strong faculty for the future despite budgetary constraints. In fact, 20 percent of the college's professorial faculty were recruited during the past seven years.

Martin said the committee hopes to submit a slate of finalists for the dean's position to Rawlings early in the spring semester.