Hutchinson named dean of undergraduates;
Burrus to serve as interim dean of engineering

FROM RICE NEWS STAFF REPORTS

Professor of Chemistry John Hutchinson has been appointed dean of undergraduates, President David Leebron and George McLendon, who will become provost next week, announced this week. The appointment is effective July 1.

	JOHN HUTCHINSON

“I am thrilled that John Hutchinson, with his history of dedication to the Rice undergraduate experience, has agreed to become our next dean of undergraduates,” Leebron said.

“I am honored that the president and provost have the confidence to put me in this position,” Hutchinson said. “I am looking forward to working with them to build on the tradition of Rice’s excellence in the undergraduate experience.

“Working with Rice students has been the great joy of my career,” he said. “It’s a privilege to teach them, work with them and
learn from them. The dean’s position will give me the opportunity to do
all of these.”

Hutchinson is a seven-time recipient of Rice’s George R. Brown teaching awards. Prior to the reorganization of administrative and academic leadership of undergraduate education under the dean of undergraduates five years ago, Hutchinson served as assistant vice president for student affairs and interim vice president for student affairs. He also has been a master of Brown and Wiess colleges. Hutchinson succeeds Rice’s first dean of undergraduates, Robin Forman, who left Rice to become dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Emory University.

“John’s numerous teaching awards are testimony to his rapport with students and his grasp of the academic aspect of the student experience at Rice,” McLendon said.

SIDNEY BURRUS

Leebron and McLendon also announced that former engineering dean Sidney Burrus ’57 will serve as interim dean of the George R. Brown School of Engineering, effective Sept. 1.

“The School of Engineering thrived under Sid’s leadership, and we’re very happy to welcome him out of retirement and back into the role of interim dean while the search for a new dean is under way,” McLendon said.

Burrus, the Maxfield and Oshman Professor Emeritus of Electrical and Computer Engineering, served as Rice’s dean of engineering from 1998 to 2005. He has also served as chair of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and as director of the Computer and Information Technology Institute. A former master of Lovett College, Burrus is also the recipient of multiple teaching awards at Rice and the Association of Rice Alumni’s highest honor, the Gold Medal. Current Dean Sallie Keller will be leaving Rice at the end of the summer to become director of the Science and Technology Policy Institute in Washington, D.C.

“I clearly was not looking for another stint as dean, but right now there’s a serious need,” Burrus said. “With Sallie’s job starting so soon, and in order to do a proper search, it’s going to take a semester to a year, somebody who knows the system needs to be the interim. I can do that.

“I know most of the senior faculty. I know a lot of other people in the university, and I know, roughly, the projects Sallie has put in motion that we want to make sure continue,” Burrus said. “And I know Bart Sinclair, the associate dean, will be extraordinarily important in continuing things.”