New vice president for academic affairs named

Dr. Jill N. Reich has been appointed as vice president for academic affairs and dean of the faculty at Bates College, President Donald W. Harward announced. Reich joined the Bates community July 1.

A former dean of the faculty at Trinity College in Hartford, Conn., Reich was most recently executive director of education for the American Psychological Association. From 1977 to 1994, she was a faculty member, department chair and associate graduate dean at Loyola University of Chicago. A graduate of Regis College, Reich received her Ph.D in experimental psychology from Dartmouth.

“As a scholar and teacher, her achievements are profound,” Harward said. “She has championed scholarship and teaching excellence within arenas of professional disciplines and in interdisciplinary contexts. We look forward to her leadership at Bates.”

The challenge of the academic vice president, Reich said, “is to foster the scholarly and teaching expertise of the faculty, while recognizing the times in which we live. These times demand a grounding in the liberal arts and sciences, shaped within a context that enhances applications to the community and the rapidly changing global marketplace.”

Reich said she looks forward to “my opportunity to help advance a liberal education of excellence, one that prepares its graduates to engage in the intellectual, economic, scientific, ethical and social challenges of the global community in which they live and for which many will serve as leaders.”