Lorrie Smith to be acting dean

Lorrie Smith (above photo); then in descending order, Patti Delaney, Donna Bozzone and Karen Talentino.

Lorrie Smith of the Saint Michael’s College English faculty has been appointed by President Lorraine Sterritt to serve as Acting Dean for the balance of this academic year and into the first part of the summer.

Jeffrey Trumbower, interim vice president for academic affairs and dean of the college, told faculty in a communication Tuesday that Smith was recommended to him and the President by members of the Faculty Executive Committee, who interviewed all the candidates.

“We had a very distinguished pool from which to choose,” Trumbower said in thanking all the candidates. “Lorrie’s principal role will be to serve as the Dean in spring tenure and promotion cases, in accordance with the Faculty Regulations.  She will also be available to those candidates for advice and assistance as the process moves along.”

Trumbower said another part of Smith’s job will be to work with those who have reviews coming up next year as they begin to prepare: this would pertain to second year, fourth year, tenure, fifth-year post-tenure, promotion, and sabbatical applicants for next year.

Smith holds master’s and doctorate degrees from Brown University and a bachelor’s from University of Massachusetts-Boston. Her teaching and research specialties are African American literature, especially poetry. “I’m happy to have the opportunity to serve the College in this time of transition,” she said. “I look forward to working with fellow faculty to uphold standards of excellence in teaching, scholarship, and service as well as the ideals of liberal arts education”.

Also Tuesday, Trumbower announced program directors for the new majors in Public Health and Health Science: For Public Health it will be Patti Delaney of the College’s anthropology faculty, returning to campus full-time in May after a two-year leave.

“Patti has actually been in Vermont quite a bit over the last few months, and she played a key role in helping to shape the Public Health proposal,” Trumbower said. “All of the stakeholders are very excited about her leadership.”

Donna Bozzone of the biology faculty has agreed to spearhead the student recruitment efforts for Public Health from now until Delaney returns in May, he said, adding that for the new Health Science major, a groundswell of support emerged to name Karen Talentino of the biology faculty and former VPAA as the director.  “Karen has great experience teaching pre-health career courses both at Saint Michael’s and elsewhere, she served for years at her previous institutions as a pre-health adviser, and her time as vice president for academic affairs at Saint Michael’s gives her solid contacts with other institutions that will help us create the internships and post-graduate opportunities necessary to make this new program a success,” he said, thanking all the new appointees for their willingness to serve.