9 a.m., March 26, 2010----Suzanne Austin has been appointed interim dean of the University of Delaware's College of Education and Public Policy, University Provost Tom Apple announced today.

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“I have had the pleasure of working with Suzanne for several years and she is perfectly suited to lead the College of Education and Public Policy during this critical time,” Apple said. “I have total confidence that she will guide the college forward on the University's Path to Prominence.”

Austin's appointment is effective April 1. The University will undertake a national search for a permanent dean of the college.

“I am pleased with the confidence the provost has in my abilities. I look forward to working with the faculty and staff of the college during this transition period,” Austin said.

Suzanne Austin

As associate provost for academic affairs since July 2009, Austin has administrative responsibility for several units, including the Honors Program, Office of Undergraduate Research, Service Learning and the McNair Program, the Office of Academic Support Services, the Undergraduate Studies Program and Pre-College Programs and the Office of Disabilities Services.

In 2008-09, she was an associate dean in the College of Arts and Sciences, leading the Division of Social Sciences and History, which includes five departments and 10 programs.

Austin was faculty director in the Office of the Vice Provost for Research and Graduate Studies from May 2007 to June 2008, and she was a faculty fellow in the Office of Provost from 2005-07.

In 2004, she was one of 38 faculty members in the nation selected to be an American Council on Education Fellow, and, as a fellow, she spent the 2004-05 academic year at West Chester University of Pennsylvania working with the president and provost as a member of the senior staff.

From 2001-03, Austin chaired the UD Department of Art, leading the faculty through a strategic planning process after an external review of the department, and in 2000-01, she was assistant dean in the College of Arts and Sciences.

A member of UD's history faculty since 1985, she directed the Latin American Studies Program at UD from 1998-2000.

In the last three years, she has served on accreditation teams for the Middle State Commission on Higher Education and the New England Association of Schools and Colleges, and as a reviewer for national screening committees of the U.S. Graduate Student Fulbright Program.

She is the author numerous of book chapters, articles and book reviews, as well as two books, A Pest in the Land: New World Epidemics in a Global Perspective and Native Society and Disease in Colonial Ecuador, which has been translated into Spanish.

A summa cum laude graduate of North Carolina State University, she earned her master's degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and her doctorate from Duke University, both in history.