Heather Fitz Gibbon

Department/Affiliation: Academic Affairs
Phone: 330-263-2576
Email: hfitzgibbon@wooster.edu

Administrative Coordinator: Darlene Berresford

The Dean for Faculty Development is responsible for leading faculty development; providing faculty support for teaching, research and scholarship; and maintaining the intellectual climate on campus through faculty presentations. Together with the Center for Diversity and Global Engagement, the Dean for Faculty Development will seek to advance the hiring and retaining of faculty of diversity. The Dean also is responsible for the following areas:

• Supporting faculty members in their teaching and professional development
• Facilitating faculty scholarship and helping the enrichment of the intellectual dimensions of the campus (e.g., arranging Faculty at Large lectures, Faculty Research Luncheons, etc.)
• Planning new faculty orientation
• Implementing a strong mentoring program for new and junior faculty
• Coordinating and strengthening faculty efforts on grants writing
• Supporting faculty members in quality of life issues (such as child care, spousal/partner employment needs, pre-retirement support, etc.)
• Hiring of visiting faculty members
• Preparing faculty meeting agenda
• Maintaining records and lists related to the faculty (including, but not limited to, teaching loads, committee work, etc.)
• Overseeing undergraduate research programs (SOREP, summer research programs, etc.)
• Assigning faculty offices
• Overseeing policy issues related to teaching facilities

Heather Fitz Gibbon, Professor of Sociology & Anthropology and Urban Studies, is serving as the Dean for Faculty Development. She earned her A.B. at Kenyon College and her M.A. and Ph.D. at Northwestern University. She joined the Wooster faculty in 1990. Her current research focuses on definitions of motherhood within the welfare system.  Much of her research has been published, including "Reassessing Commitments to Work and Family in a Changing Economy" in Qualitative Sociology and several book chapters.