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August 19, 2005 > News > Stein to end tenure as social sciences dean next summer

Stein to end tenure as social sciences dean next summer

Hopes to spend this year fund raising for proposed new facility

By Nathan Black | Thresher Editorial Staff

Bob Stein has begun his third “last” year as dean of social sciences. Previously, Stein remained dean to ease the transition to David Leebron’s presidency and to promote a new social sciences and continuing students building.

“It seemed more appropriate not to saddle a new dean with that task,” Stein, a political science professor, said.

A search committee for Stein’s replacement — who will start in the 2006-‘07 academic year — will be formally announced soon, Provost Eugene Levy said. He said members have already been selected for most positions.

Levy said the committee will conduct a national search, but will also consider internal candidates.

“We will be looking for somebody who is … intellectually entrepreneurial and entrepreneurial in other fashions,” he said.

Student Association President James Lloyd said he submitted the names of potential undergraduate representatives to Levy, and one should be announced next week. Since interested students were given a short amount of time to apply in the summer, Lloyd said he was pleased to receive 10 applications.

Stein will not teach POLI 332: Urban Politics this fall as originally planned. Stein said he had not anticipated the building’s plans advancing so far along. Social sciences faculty member Stephanie Post will teach the course instead.

Stein said he will propose the new social sciences building to the Board of Trustees in September. If approved, he will spend the rest of the academic year fund raising.

Stein said he envisions a building with large lecture halls to allow more students to progress quickly through introductory courses and small classrooms conducive to collaborative undergraduate research.

“The building is driven by a different view of how we would teach undergraduates in the next 15 to 20 years,” he said.

Stein said the building should also reflect the current nature of research.

“Collaborative research is much of what you’ll be doing in the workforce, whether it’s in business, industry, government or in the academy,” he said. “This is still very much a 1970s kind of university in that regard, and we’ve got to change. … To do that requires a different kind of space.”

Stein said Leebron’s discussion of increasing undergraduate enrollment has added concern about current facilities.

“We are badly under-spaced [already],” Stein said. “We’re going to see an enormous growth [if enrollment increases], and we can’t sustain it with the facilities that we have. But more importantly, I don’t think we can sustain it with the kind of teaching and research we want to do.”

Stein said the ideal site for the new building would be between the Rice Memorial Center and Herring Hall, but he said other sites are also being considered.

Stein said his successor, who he believes will come from outside the university, will have the challenge of increasing racial and gender diversity among the faculty.

“We’re barely at 20 percent female faculty when our professions are 50 percent female,” Stein said. “Whatever efforts I’ve made have not been sufficient and neither have the departments’.”

Stein plans to remain political science professor at Rice next year.

End of article

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