Joanne Roberts to join Bates as vice president for academic affairs and dean of the faculty

Joanne Roberts, Ph.D., will join Bates College as vice president for academic affairs and dean of the faculty, effective July 1, 2025, Bates President Garry W. Jenkins has announced. 

Roberts comes to Bates from Yale-NUS College in Singapore, where she has served as president since 2022 and prior to that held multiple leadership roles at the liberal arts college, including executive vice president for academic affairs from 2018 to 2022 and dean of faculty.

At Yale-NUS, an international joint venture of Yale University and the National University of Singapore, Roberts oversaw a faculty of 140 and staff of 200, leading recruitment efforts and a revamped research grant drive that doubled the number of grant applications and more than tripled the funds awarded to faculty. After Singapore’s government ended the partnership with Yale, Roberts led the institution through the complexities of the closure, which will be final in June 2025. 

In addition to her administrative leadership, Roberts is a noted public economist who first taught at Yale-NUS as a senior visiting fellow in 2012 and became a tenured member of its faculty in 2017. Earlier, she was a tenured professor at the University of Calgary for eight years, where she held the Canada Research Chair in the Economics of Organizations. Roberts started her teaching career in 1998 at the University of Toronto, and earned tenure there in 2004.

“We are delighted to be welcoming Joanne Roberts, a seasoned administrator and eminent scholar of international renown, to Bates College,” said President Jenkins. “As an experienced chief academic officer, she has mentored, developed, and innovated on behalf of faculty. She has a clear capacity to navigate academic leadership with skill and compassion, and I am confident she will bring those same talents to her work at Bates as she builds community and opportunity for our faculty, students, and academic staff. I look forward to working together, in partnership, to propel us forward and advance the college’s academic aspirations.”

At Bates, Roberts will oversee a faculty of more than 200 and a curricular program that includes 37 majors. In addition, the vice president for academic affairs oversees the Dean of the Faculty’s Office, the Registrar’s Office, the Harward Center for Community Partnerships, the Bates Dance Festival, the Bates College Museum of Art, and the Office of Sponsored Programs and Research Compliance.

“Meeting with faculty, staff, and students when I visited earlier this spring, I felt an immediate affinity with the Bates community,” Roberts said. “I appreciate the shared values of innovation and inclusivity. Bates is a place that truly celebrates the importance of liberal arts education. I look forward to working with faculty and staff to expand an already remarkable breadth of academic excellence in teaching, research, and mentoring talented students.” 

Roberts received a Ph.D. in economics from Queen’s University. She earned her undergraduate degree from the University of Waterloo, with honors in economics. 

The national search for Bates’ next vice president for academic affairs and dean of the faculty was overseen by a committee of Bates faculty and staff, chaired by Francesco Duina, the Charles A. Dana Professor of Sociology, with assistance from Isaacson Miller, a nationally recognized executive search firm with deep experience recruiting exceptional leaders in higher education. 

Roberts will come to Bates with her husband, Eugene Choo, the Kwan Im Thong Hood Cho Temple Professor and Head of Economic Studies at Yale-NUS College, who will also join the Bates faculty as a tenured professor in economics, and their two children, Jude, a middle-school student, and Finn, who will be matriculating at a small liberal arts college in the fall. 

Roberts succeeds Malcolm Hill, who will step down from his role on June 30, 2025. Hill has served as the vice president for academic affairs and dean of the faculty since 2018 and plans to return to teaching and research after a sabbatical.