TULANE TALK

April 8, 2008

Good morning:

I am pleased to announce that Carole Haber, Richards Professor of History and chair of the history department at the University of Delaware, will become the new dean of the School of Liberal Arts (SLA) at Tulane University effective July 1. Carole will replace George Bernstein, who was appointed interim dean in July 2006 and ably and graciously served in that capacity while we conducted a national search for a permanent dean. George will return to his faculty position in Tulane’s history department upon Carole’s arrival. We are deeply indebted to George for his leadership of the school during the last two years.

An accomplished scholar, teacher and author, Carole graduated summa cum laude with a bachelor of arts in history from Washington University in St. Louis and earned a PhD in American civilization from the University of Pennsylvania. She joined the department of history at the University of North Carolina-Charlotte in 1979 as an assistant professor. During the next nearly 20 years she served in various academic and administrative roles at UNC-Charlotte, eventually becoming chair of the history department in 1993.

In 1998 Carole left UNC-Charlotte for the University of Delaware where she was named full professor and history department chair. In 2003 she was named Richards Professor of History, an endowed position. She also held several administrative positions at the University of Delaware including membership on the Dean’s Advisory Committee, a position through which she shared oversight of the College of Arts and Sciences’ budget. Carole’s impressive scholarly record and reputation as an outstanding educator and academic administrator make her well suited to be the first permanent dean of the School of Liberal Arts, which, following our post-Katrina Renewal Plan, was founded as the home of the arts, humanities, social sciences and several centers and institutes.

Carole’s wide academic interests include aging and an exploration of the medicalization of death in America at the turn of the 20th century. She is the author of several highly regarded books including Beyond Sixty-Five: The Dilemma of Old Age in America’s Past, Old Age and the Search for Security and Key Words in Sociocultural Gerontology. She has also served as a consultant on aging for NBC, BBC, NPR, the National Institutes of Health and the National Institute on Aging.

Carole is the latest in a long line of highly respected and successful people who have decided to make New Orleans their new home. As she told us: “My enthusiasm for the mission of Tulane as well as my desire to be part of the team that shapes the future of New Orleans makes me extremely excited about this position and its possibilities.”

We are equally excited to welcome Carole to Tulane. I would like to thank Provost Bernstein and the SLA Search Committee, led by anthropology professor Dan Healan, for the excellent job of recruiting Carole to Tulane.