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Humanities and Music Gain New Deans
Gary S. Wihl
Gary S. Wihl, former acting dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at Emory University in Atlanta, took the reins of Rice’s School of Humanities on July 1, and Robert Yekovich, dean of the school of music at North Carolina School of the Arts, became dean of the Shepherd School of Music on July 21. Wihl succeeds Gale Stokes, the Mary Gibbs Jones Professor of History, who had accepted a twoyear term as dean in June 2001, after serving a one-year interim term. “Rice’s already fine School of Humanities has the opportunity to move into the front ranks of humanities teaching and scholarship,” says Rice provost Eugene Levy. “That will take a sharp, focused, and creative strategic vision as well as the ability to imagine possibilities and a commitment to marshal the energy and enthusiasm necessary to realize those possibilities. I am confident that we have found those qualities in Gary Wihl.” Wihl joined Emory in January 2001 as associate dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and became acting dean in June 2001. His many achievements at Emory include strengthening funding for graduate fellowships for doctoral students in the humanities and social sciences; implementing an enhanced faculty research grant
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Rice Sallyport
program to promote new areas of research and collaboration with doctoral students; and organizing a major national conference on philanthropy and the research university, which brought together the nation’s top academic and philanthropic leaders to discuss the mutually beneficial and longstanding relationship between philanthropy and academia. He also worked very closely with the graduate school faculty’s executive council in planning a strategy for the school’s academic programs. “This is an important time for the humanities,” Wihl says. “While we often look to many research fields for innovation and new discoveries, the humanities represent the core of knowledge within universities, as well as their most mature disciplines—disciplines that build on generations of scholarship and address the fundamental questions of personal identity, ethical values, and all the resources of language that lead to forms of creative expression.” Wihl received his bachelor’s degree from McGill University and his Ph.D. from Yale. He held a Mellon postdoctoral fellowship at Johns Hopkins University and then returned to McGill as assistant professor of English. He was promoted to associate professor in 1989 and to professor in 1996. During his years at McGill, he served as
associate dean of the graduate faculty and on the graduate faculty research development committee. He chaired the Department of English from 1996 to 1999 and served as associate dean of information technology for the faculty of arts. Wihl is the author of two books and has co-edited two collections of essays. He spoke at the Sawyer Seminar at the National Humanities Center in North Carolina
Robert Yekovich
cord of accomplishment in music and music-education leadership. He impressed the search committee and me with his depth of thought, and he impressed and energized his music colleagues at the Shepherd School with his sense of music and leadership. The Shepherd School of Music is one of Rice’s true gems. I am confident that he will be able to bring the mix of inspiration and
“Rice’s already fine School of Humanities has the opportunity to move into the front ranks of humanities teaching and scholarship.” —Eugene Levy, Rice Provost
and has received numerous grants from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. His research focuses on the interpretation of liberalism and constitutional change in selected 19th- and 20th-century English and American authors. Robert Yekovich, who is the fifth dean of the music school, succeeds the late Michael Hammond, who left Rice to become chair of the National Endowment for the Arts. Anne Schnoebelen, the Joseph and Ida Kirkland Mullen Professor of Music, has served as interim dean since January 2002. “We are extremely fortunate to have lured Bob Yekovich to Rice as dean of the Shepherd School,” says Levy. “Bob comes to Rice with an exceptional re-
thoughtful guidance so essential to advancing the Shepherd School beyond its already manifestly high quality and distinction.” Yekovich has served as the dean of the music school of the North Carolina School of the Arts at the University of North Carolina since 1991. During his tenure as dean, he helped establish the A.J. Fletcher Opera Institute, which has a $10-million endowment and has become one of the most prestigious graduate opera programs in the United States. He also conceptualized the plans for the school’s new $10-million music building and concert hall. In addition, he assembled a distinguished faculty and is credited with increasing the annual merit scholarship allocations to more