Undergraduate Education Dean To Step Down

Dean of Undergraduate Education Susan G. Pedersen ’81-’82 will step down at the end of the academic year, after a two-year tenure that saw a markedly increased role for her office within the Faculty of Arts and Sciences.

Pedersen will take an academic leave of absence to pursue her research next year, after which she said she plans to return to Harvard as a professor of history.

Dean of the Faculty Jeremy R. Knowles will announce Pedersen’s resignation at today’s Faculty meeting and will also announce whether he or his successor will select her replacement.

Pedersen, who has two children under the age of five, said yesterday that balancing her responsibilities as dean, in addition to her usual scholarly work, with raising a family has proven too much to handle.

“I found it too difficult to be a good parent to my children while doing this,” she said. “For me to hold an administrative post, my family has to be living in the same place.”

Her husband normally spends most of his weekdays in New York City as an associate professor of sociology at New York University, but next year he will serve as a visiting professor at Harvard in Social Studies.

During her year away, Pedersen said she plans to complete research for a book she is writing on Eleanor Rathbone, a feminist and social reformer who was a member of British Parliament during the two World Wars.

In her two years as dean, Pedersen’s signatory accomplishment has been dramatic expansion of the Freshman Seminar program, which has doubled its offerings since she arrived.

The initial push to expand freshman seminars came from Knowles, but Faculty and administrators said yesterday it was Pedersen’s leadership that ultimately made the initiative a success.

“From the moment she became dean, she began to think about how to turn that kernel of an idea from Dean Knowles into reality,” said Associate Dean of Undergraduate Education Jeffrey Wolcowitz.

She also leaves several major initiatives pending that would give students more control over their academic programs.

This afternoon, one of Pedersen’s largest projects of the year—a proposal to reduce Core requirements from eight to seven—will come before the full Faculty for an up or down vote. The measure is expected to pass, as it has already received the support of key Faculty committees.

And this morning, the Educational Policy Committee will discuss ways to make studying abroad easier for undergraduates, another proposal that has come through Pedersen’s office.

Pedersen will leave several major initiatives for her successor to complete. The current Faculty debate over grade inflation is unlikely to be resolved by the end of the year. And the Core reduction, if passed today, would be only a first step towards revamping the Core curriculum—which comes up for a more complete review next winter.

When Knowles appointed Pedersen two years ago, she had originally planned to return for a third year as dean following her academic leave. But in November, she informed Knowles that she wanted to return to the Faculty.

As dean, Pedersen provided “an energetic, innovative and singularly effective voice on behalf of improved undergraduate education here at Harvard,” said Tishman and Diker Professor of Sociology and Afro-American Studies Lawrence D. Bobo, who serves on an academic committee that Pedersen chairs.

“Dean Pedersen has, in less than two years, brought about more good changes in the curricular experience of our undergraduates than I had thought was possible in such a short time,” Knowles wrote in an e-mail.

During her tenure, Pedersen worked to strengthen the role of the dean of undergraduate education within the Faculty. Under Pedersen’s watch, the office added an assistant dean position and a director to oversee the Freshman Seminar program.

Rather than being solely the result of her efforts, Pedersen said, the increasing importance of her office has reflected a general mood in the Faculty to make undergraduate education a higher priority.

“More attention was focused on undergraduate education and the curriculum at the moment I came in,” Pedersen said. “That made it necessary for my office to become more active.”

Colleagues said yesterday that Pedersen leaves the office of undergraduate education stronger than she found it.

“I think this office is going to remain quite central to any considerations of undergraduate curriculum and academic experience,” Wolcowitz said.

—Staff writer Kate L. Rakoczy can be reached at rakoczy@fas.harvard.edu.