Georgetown University invites inquiries, nominations, and applications for the position of dean of Georgetown College of Arts & Sciences (CAS).
This next dean will join Georgetown at a pivotal juncture, as it seeks to cement its standing and success in a time of rapid change in higher education. As the premier university in the nation’s capital, the essential political capital in the world, Georgetown must effectively leverage its scholarly and teaching role to address the great policy issues of our time. That work will require the collaboration of multiple academic fields to address pressing world problems.
Over the past few decades, Georgetown’s trajectory has been nothing short of remarkable. It has evolved from a regional school into one of national and international prominence, emerging as a major international research university with nine schools, an affiliated hospital, and many highly ranked academic programs that serve more than 22,000 undergraduate and graduate students. Much of that dynamism has occurred under the transformational, 23-year tenure of Georgetown’s 48th and first lay president, John J. DeGioia.
The College of Arts & Sciences is the oldest and largest school within the university, home to 26 academic departments and 12 interdisciplinary programs, and it is critical to Georgetown’s identity as a student-centered research university with a powerful sense of community. CAS enrolls approximately 3,850 undergraduates, 600 doctoral students, and 400 master’s students; employs more than 500 full-time faculty; and draws part-time instructors from Washington’s many governmental and non-governmental agencies, cultural organizations, and research institutes.
But Georgetown as a whole, including CAS, has outgrown its historic Hilltop campus. And, over the next 5-10 years, this dean will play a critical role helping Georgetown to achieve a level of growth and innovation the University has not seen for decades. Georgetown is currently building a Capitol Campus in downtown DC that is an innovative combination of law, public policy, international affairs, and a vast array of disciplines linked directly or indirectly to the political and policy life of the capital. It will ultimately match the Hilltop campus in number of students and faculty. It will more fully leverage Georgetown’s DC location. And it will create environments for students and faculty to collaborate on consequential, real-world problems across academic disciplines. This is a once-in-a-century transformational strategy, giving Georgetown the economics and the scale it requires to compete with the great universities of the world. The appointment of this dean has never been more consequential for Georgetown’s future.
All of this forward movement is animated by the Jesuit ideals of Georgetown’s founding – the idea that a university is at its best when committed to social justice and the common good. To succeed in this work, this next dean will: value a culture of cooperation, rather than competition, with fellow deans; firmly believe in resisting the traditional siloes of higher education to enable Georgetown to grow in research impact and educational innovation, building on a growing research portfolio with an annual expenditure of $20 million; understand the strategic importance of graduate programs; and be energized by change and leading others through change.
Compelling candidates will also bring experience crafting and advancing a vision and strategic plan for a complex academic unit; an intellectual curiosity that transcends and supports all disciplines across the full range of the humanities, arts, and sciences; an innate commitment to diversity and inclusion; an entrepreneurial approach to fundraising and developing new sources of revenue (the next dean will be active in the current campaign, on target to achieve a $3 billion goal); and the ability to manage strong teams of people and complex institutional budgets (the annual operating budget for CAS is about $100 million).
A search committee has been formed and will be supported in this recruitment by Isaacson, Miller, a national executive search firm. All inquiries, nominations, and applications should be submitted in confidence through the firm’s website: https://www.imsearch.com/open-searches/georgetown-university/dean-college-arts-sciences
Georgetown University values diversity and is committed to equal opportunity for all persons regardless of age, color, disability, ethnicity, marital status, national origin, race, religion, sex, sexual orientation, veteran status or any other status protected by law.
