April 1, 2004

Wachtel named Graduate School dean

Chair of Slavic languages and literatures, he succeeds Richard Morimoto Sept. 1

Andrew Wachtel has been appointed dean of The Graduate School, effective Sept. 1, it was announced last week by Provost Lawrence B. Dumas.

A faculty member at Northwestern since 1991, Wachtel is Bertha and Max Dressler Professor in the Humanities, director of the Center for Comparative and International Studies (CICS) and chair of the department of Slavic languages and literatures.

Wachtel will succeed Richard Morimoto, who has served as dean of The Graduate School for the past six years and who will return to full-time teaching and research as John Evans Professor of Molecular Biology and Director of the Rice Institute for Biomedical Research.

Dumas said, “President Bienen and I are pleased to be able to add a distinguished academic humanist to the University’s administrative team, and we very much look forward to working with Wachtel in fulfilling our shared commitment to strengthening further graduate study at Northwestern.”

“As chair of his department since 1997, he has been a vigorous administrator, participating centrally in the development of the Slavic department into one of the very strongest in the nation,” Dumas said. “He has shown similar energy and imagination as director of CICS, director of the Program in Comparative Literary Studies (1999-2002) and a member of numerous University committees.”

Wachtel’s University service includes membership on the Program Review Council (1998-2002) and the General Faculty Committee (1998-2001), including one year as chair of that important governance body.

Closely associated with graduate education throughout his Northwestern career, Wachtel served as director of Graduate Studies in Slavic (1991-97) and was among the persons who participated in the formation of The Graduate School’s Presidential Fellows Program. He has served as a Senior Fellow in that body since its inception in 2001-02.

Wachtel is the author or editor of 10 books and more than 50 articles on Russian and South Slavic literature, culture, history and society.

His most recent published book is “Making a Nation, Breaking a Nation: Literature and Cultural Politics in Yugoslavia” (Stanford University Press, 1998). Earlier books include “The Battle for Childhood: Creation of a Russian Myth” (Stanford, 1990), “An Obsession with History: Russian Writers Confront the Past” (Stanford, 1994), and “Petrushka: Sources and Contexts” (Northwestern University Press, 1998).

Forthcoming books include “Remaining Relevant after Communism? Writers and Society in Eastern Europe since 1989” and “A History of the Balkans.”