University names internal candidate Executive Dean

Columbus – President Karen A. Holbrook and Executive Vice President and Provost Barbara R. Snyder announced today (3/21) that they will recommend to Ohio State’s Board of Trustees the appointment of Jacqueline Jones Royster as Executive Dean of the Colleges of the Arts and Sciences and Senior Vice Provost. Subject to the trustees’ approval, Royster’s appointment will be effective on April 1, 2005.

Royster has served as interim executive dean during a search for the permanent replacement of Michael Hogan, who left Ohio State last June to become provost of the University of Iowa.

“Professor Royster is a well-respected scholar and teacher who also has extensive academic administrative experience,” Holbrook said. “Conducting a national search and then choosing one of our own faculty members validates how highly regarded she is as an academic leader nationally,” she added.

Royster has written numerous articles and eight books, including Profiles of Ohio Women, 1803-2003, which received top honors from the National Federation of Press Women and the Ohio Professional Writers Association; and Traces of a Stream: Literacy and Social Change among African American Women, which received the Mina P. Shaughnessy Prize from the Modern Languages Association. She has taught English at all levels, from freshman composition to graduate courses on language, culture and the development of literacy.

“Professor Royster has widespread support as the right person at the right time to lead the Colleges of the Arts and Sciences,” Snyder said.

Royster joined the Ohio State faculty in 1992 following 16 years on the faculty at Spelman College in Atlanta. She is a graduate of Spelman and received both her master’s and doctoral degrees from the University of Michigan.

Royster has broad administrative experience, including her service as interim dean of the College of Humanities; senior associate dean for research, also in the College of Humanities; vice chair for rhetoric and composition in the Department of English; and director of the University Writing Center. She also served in several administrative roles at Spelman College. Among her many national service roles, she has been chair of the Conference on College Composition and Communication and chair of the executive committee of the Division on Teaching Writing for the Modern Language Association. At Ohio State, she has served on a wide range of university committees including Coordinating Council, the Council of Deans Steering Committee and the University Senate Fiscal Committee.

“I am pleased to be selected. I look forward with great enthusiasm to working with colleagues in the arts and sciences to achieve the goals of the ASC as a vibrant area at the University and also to working with colleagues across the University to reach the goals of the Academic Plan and the President’s Leadership Agenda,” Royster said.

***A photo of Royster is available upon request. Please e-mail or call Amy Murray, (614) 292-8385 or murray-goedde.1@osu.edu