Hexter named executive dean of College of Letters & Science

By Kathleen Maclay, Public Affairs

Ralph Hexter

03 April 2002 | Professor Ralph Hexter has been named executive dean of the College of Letters & Science, the campus’s largest academic unit.

“The chancellor and I are delighted that Dean Hexter has agreed to serve as executive dean of the College of Letters and Science,” said Executive Vice Chancellor & Provost Paul Gray, in announcing the new appointment March 22. “He has a profound regard for the college and its educational objectives and will draw on his leadership and consensus-building skills to sustain and advance its excellence.”

Hexter is a professor of comparative literature and classics and a scholar of classical and medieval Latin in the College of Letters & Science. He also is dean of arts and humanities in Letters & Science, and he will retain that post.

In his new position, Hexter will work with the other deans of the college’s five divisions — arts and humanities, physical sciences, social sciences, biological sciences and the undergraduate division — and will oversee the common operations of the college such as finance and administration, computing services and college relations. Each of the deans will continue to represent his division directly to the executive vice chancellor and provost, and will continue to maintain autonomy over divisional budgets, and academic and staff personnel.

Hexter will succeed Paul Licht, who on July 1 will leave his two posts — as chair of the College of Letters & Science deans (as the executive deanship was formerly called) and as dean of biological sciences — to take a year’s sabbatical.

As executive dean, Hexter will have a central role in fundraising and alumni and college relations for the College of Letters & Science and will oversee the central administration operations of the college.

“All the deans are working to raise the profile of Letters and Science as Berkeley’s college of liberal arts,” he said. “In that effort, my role as executive dean is a coordinating one.”