Robin Forman named first dean of undergraduates

Robin Forman named first dean of undergraduates

BY MARGOT DIMOND
Rice News staff

Robin Forman, professor and chair of the mathematics department and master of Jones College, has been named Rice University’s first dean of undergraduates, effective immediately, President David Leebron and Provost Eugene Levy announced.

Forman

The new dean will be responsible for bringing together all aspects of the undergraduate experience, from academics and advising to career services to extracurricular and social activities. The dean will report to and work closely with the president and provost, serving as an advocate for undergraduates.

“Robin provides precisely what we had in mind in creating the new dean’s position,” President Leebron said. “He brings an exceptional combination of experience and talent and an understanding of Rice, student life and the values of an academic community. At the same time, he is an innovator. Add to this his understanding of people and sense of humor and you have an ideal person to shape the new dean’s role.”

In creating the new position, the president and provost specified that it would be filled with a tenured Rice faculty member. Forman was chosen after a months-long internal search conducted by a committee chaired by Allen Matusow, the W. G. Twyman Professor of History and associate director of academic programs at the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy.

“The committee was fortunate to have several strong candidates,” Matusow said. “Robin’s particular strengths were the wide support his candidacy enjoyed in the university community, his deep knowledge of the college system, his innovative leadership as a college master and his excellence as a scholar. I believe he will be a great dean of undergraduates.”

Forman said he would give up his positions as chair of the mathematics department and master of Jones College but not all of his faculty roles.

“I expect this deanship to be particularly challenging this semester because we’ll be putting a new position into place,” he said. “But I will remain a mathematician and will continue to lead a research group in the math department and advise my graduate students. After we get things organized, I will teach one class a semester as well.”

Forman said the precise set of offices that will report to the dean’s office will evolve as the vision for the position comes into being.

“The idea is to stop thinking of academic activities and college-life activities as existing in different spheres, but rather to think of college life in a more holistic way,” he said. “The student affairs division has primarily looked after the noncurricular aspects of student life, but the distinction between the curricular and noncurricular is somewhat artificial and limits the scope of what we can really accomplish as a university.”

Forman said that he looks forward to working with the student affairs staff. “I really admire them, and one of the reasons I’m so excited about the job is getting a chance to work with them,” he said.

He also is eager to work with the faculty and, of course, students across campus.“Rice gets phenomenal students — creative, talented, smart and ambitious,” Forman said. “One of the thrills of being on the faculty at Rice is that you’re dealing with students of so much potential.”

As a master, he has gotten to know hundreds of undergraduates, and he said that experience has made being a member of the Rice community “immensely rewarding.”

Though his role will be somewhat different, Forman said he hopes his relationship with the students won’t change too much.

“I have come to value the opportunity to interact with students on a regular basis,” he said. “I’m accepting the job with the understanding that I will continue to be able to do that, and I view that as an important part of the job.”

Forman, who is a native of Philadelphia, holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Pennsylvania and a Ph.D. from Harvard. He first came to Rice as a visiting faculty member in 1986 and began teaching full-time in 1987 as an assistant professor of mathematics.

Forman’s research is in the area of combinatorial methods in topology and geometry, focusing on the relationship between continuous mathematics, such as calculus and topology, and discrete mathematics of the sort that computers do. He has published numerous articles and book chapters and given presentations and invited addresses on his research.

He and his wife, Ann Owens, producing director of the Houston Grand Opera, are in their third year as masters of Jones College. They have a son, Saul, 7.

Members of the search committee that offered finalist names to the president and provost included Enrique Barrera, professor of mechanical engineering and materials science; John Casbarian, professor of architecture; Carl Isgren ’61, member of the board of trustees; Cheryl Matherly, assistant dean for student affairs and director of international opportunities; Derrick Matthews, senior student and president of the Student Association; Emily Matuzek, senior student; Carol Quillen, associate professor of history and director of the Boniuk Center for the Study and Advancement of Religious Tolerance; Robert Yekovich, dean of the Shepherd School of Music; and George Zodrow, professor of economics.