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Dear Colleague:
I am writing to inform you that Richard Morimoto will be
stepping down as Dean of The Graduate School and Associate
Provost for Graduate Education at the end of this academic
year in order to return to full-time research and teaching
in the Department of Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, and
Cell Biology. In 1998, Morimoto accepted a five-year appointment
to his current position. President Bienen and I asked him
to stay on for at least a sixth year; and Dean Morimoto has
determined that this year should be his last in this post.
During his six years as Dean of The Graduate School, Morimoto
has worked effectively with students, staff, faculty, and
administrators to implement a number of initiatives to strengthen
graduate education at Northwestern. Both President Bienen
and I believe that the quality of our graduate education in
some significant measure defines the quality of the University
we are and the institution we aspire to be. We are deeply
grateful to Dean Morimoto for the imagination and energy he
has brought to improving and enriching the enterprise of graduate
education at Northwestern.
In his commitment to increasing the quality and competitiveness
of matriculants in the The Graduate School's doctoral and
MFA programs, Dean Morimoto introduced uniform financial support
for all doctoral students. He also worked with academic units
to establish "recruitment weekend" programs to enable
outstanding applicants to visit Northwestern and enjoy first-hand
exposure to the diverse and complementary strengths of disciplinary
clusters in the humanities and social sciences. Begun in 1999,
this program is now held on six weekends, including more than
a dozen disciplines and hosting some 140 prospective graduate
students. Partly as a result of such initiatives, admission
to doctoral programs has become increasingly competitive,
and increasing percentages of those offered admission have
accepted those offers. Among the 8800 applicants for the current
entering class, for example, only 16% were admitted. Of those
admitted, some 40% enrolled.
Renewing The Graduate School's commitment to increase the
enrollment of underrepresented minority students, Dean Morimoto
established discipline-wide faculty minority recruitment committees
in the life and biomedical sciences, humanities, and engineering.
During his tenure as dean, the enrollment of minority graduate
students increased by 30%. He also spearheaded the establishment
of new programs for our diverse population of international
students, including the International Summer Institute, which
provides comprehensive training in oral and written communication
and cultural immersion courses for new students. Such initiatives
-- together with faculty efforts to re-examine departmental
and interdisciplinary programs with an emphasis on the quality
of mentoring, training, career guidance and placement -- place
Northwestern's graduate programs in a much stronger competitive
position, nationally, and worldwide.
Through the recently concluded Campaign Northwestern, more
than 30 new fellowships have been established in The Graduate
School. The availability of these new resources benefits each
of the schools by permitting selective growth in student numbers
in order to strengthen Northwestern's best graduate programs,
by allowing the development of new interdisciplinary programs,
by increasing our success in recruitment of minority students,
and by enhancing our ability to be highly competitive for
matching funds for graduate student training grants from the
NIH, NSF and other foundations and agencies.
Dean Morimoto also recognized the importance of recognizing
the very best among our many fine graduate students. The new
Presidential Graduate Fellow initiative draws together a highly
selected group of distinguished current students across all
disciplines; this Fellowship now represents the highest internal
honor for a Northwestern graduate student. The program began
in 2002 with the appointment of eight Fellows. Additional
Fellows are appointed each year, with the goal of maintaining
a steady-state cohort of 12 to 15. Similarly, Commencement
weekend has been expanded to include a University-wide hooding
convocation for doctoral and MFA recipients.
As a direct result of Dean Morimoto's working closely with
graduate student groups across both campuses, their voice
now actively informs important decisions related to Northwestern's
graduate programs, The Graduate School, and the University.
At the end of this academic year, Dean Morimoto will return
to his home department, BMBCB, where he had previously served
as the Chair, to continue his activities as the John Evans
Professor of Molecular Biology and Director of the Rice Institute
for Biomedical Research.
While accomplishing so much as Dean of The Graduate School,
Morimoto also maintained a large and active research group.
Upon his return to full-time faculty status, he will continue
his widely-recognized research on the molecular biology of
protein quality control and cellular stress responses. This
research is of central importance to the understanding of
diseases of protein conformation, including Huntington's disease,
ALS, and Parkinson's disease. During his deanship he received
a MERIT award from the National Institutes of Health, served
on a study section of the National Institutes of Health, participated
in review panels throughout the world, and was recognized
as a Visiting Professor at the University of Rome, Peking
University, Ecole Normale Superieur in Paris, and Kyoto University
in Japan.
I am seeking the assistance of the Administrative Board of
The Graduate School and the General Faculty Committee to establish
a search committee to help identity a successor to Morimoto
as Dean of The Graduate School. Because President Bienen and
I believe that there are special advantages to having this
important position filled by a person familiar with Northwestern,
the search will initially be an internal one.
Lawrence B. Dumas
Provost
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