Berkeleyan

Historian Stovall is new L&S undergraduate dean

By Carol Ness, Public Affairs | 04 June 2008

The Undergraduate Division of the College of Letters and Science will have a new dean beginning July 1 with the appointment of Tyler Stovall, a respected history professor who has made modern France, race, labor, and class issues his specialties.

Tyler Stovall (Deborah Stalford photo)

Stovall has served as associate dean in the college’s Division of Social Sciences and as chair of the history department and provost of Stevenson College at UC Santa Cruz, where he taught for 15 years before coming to Berkeley in 2001.

“Tyler Stovall is a highly respected scholar, teacher, and citizen of the university. We are very grateful that he is willing to provide leadership in this important role,” said George Breslauer, executive vice chancellor and provost, in announcing Stovall’s appointment, approved by the Board of Regents at its May meeting.

Seventy-five percent of all Berkeley undergraduates study in Letters and Science, and the college’s Undergraduate Division “is a key to our providing them with a first-class educational experience,” Breslauer said.

Says Stovall: “I’ve always felt that undergraduates are the heart of the university, and in this new role I look forward to working with some of the best undergraduates I’ve ever met in my life.”

The Undergraduate Division was established in 2000 to strengthen interdisciplinary teaching programs and to better serve students in degree planning and academic advising.

Stovall replaces Robert Holub, who left Berkeley to become provost at the University of Tennessee in 2006. Christina Maslach, vice provost for undergraduate education, has been filling the role on an interim basis since Holub’s departure.

Stovall has also served the Berkeley Division of the Academic Senate as executive director of the France-Berkeley Fund and as vice chair of its committee on women and ethnic minorities.

Stovall earned his B.A. in history at Harvard in 1976, and his M.A. (1978) and Ph.D. (1984) in modern European/French history at the University of Wisconsin. Among his articles published since arriving at Berkeley are “Beyond Dead White Males: Towards a Post-Colonial History of Europe” and reviews of books on racial difference and the African-French experience in France.

Details about compensation for all new administrators are available at the UC Regents’ salaries and compensation website (www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/compensation/salaryactions.html).