A Half Dozen Women Who Have Been Named to Dean Positions in Higher Education

Allyson Leggett Watson was appointed dean of the College of Education at the St. Petersburg campus of the University of South Florida. She will take office on July 1. Currently, Dr. Watson is assistant dean for the College of Education at Northeastern State University in Tahlequah, Oklahoma. She also holds the Eddings Endowed Chair for Urban Education, Outreach and Research at the university.

Dr. Watson is a graduate of Bethune-Cookman University in Daytona Beach, Florida, where she majored in elementary education. She holds a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in educational administration, curriculum, and supervision from the University of Oklahoma.

Soyeon Shim was appointed to a new term as dean of the School of Human Ecology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She became dean in 2012. Earlier, she spent 22 years on the faculty at the University of Arizona. Dr. Shim’s research focuses on consumer decision making.

A native of Seoul, South Korea, Dr. Shim holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the College of Human Ecology at Yonsei University in Korea. She earned a Ph.D. at the University of Tennessee.

Carol Strohecker will be the next dean of the College of Design at the University of Minnesota. She will take office on August 31. She is the former vice provost for academic affairs at the Rhode Island School of Design in Providence.

Dr. Strohecker holds a master’s degree in visual studies and a Ph.D. in media arts and sciences from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Kathryn Graff Low as appointed interim dean of the faculty at Bates College in Lewiston, Maine, for the 2017-18 academic year. Dr. Graff is a professor of psychology and associate dean of the faculty at the college.

Dr. Low has been a member of the Bates College faculty for 27 years and was promoted to full professor in 2003. She holds a bachelor’s degree from Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine, a master’s degree from Harvard University, and a doctorate from Stanford University.

Ann Walters Robertson is the new dean of the Division of the Humanities at the University of Chicago. She is the Claire Dux Swift Distinguished Service Professor of Music and the Humanities at the university. Professor Robertson joined the faculty at the university in 1984. She is past president of the American Musicological Society.

Professor Robertson is the author of several books including The Service-Books of the Royal Abbey of Saint-Denis: Images of Ritual and Music in the Middle Ages (Clarendon Press, 1991). She holds a Ph.D. from Yale University.

Bonnie J. Dow was appointed dean of humanities at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. She is a professor and chair of the department of communication and a professor of women’s and gender studies at the university. Professor Dow is the author of Watching Women’s Liberation, 1970: Feminism Pivotal Year on the Network News (University of Illinois Press, 2014).

Professor Dow is a graduate of Baylor University in Waco, Texas, where she majored in communication. She holds a master’s degree from the University of Kansas and a Ph.D. in communication studies from the University of Minnesota.