Historian, Educator Douglas Greenberg Named Executive Dean of School of Arts and Sciences

NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. – Douglas Greenberg, professor of history at the University of Southern California and executive director of the Shoah Foundation Institute for Visual History and Education, has been appointed the first executive dean of the new School of Arts and Sciences on the New Brunswick Campus, Rutgers President Richard L. McCormick announced.

Greenberg, who grew up in Highland Park and earned a bachelor’s degree with highest distinction in history from Rutgers in 1969, is returning to his alma mater to lead the university’s largest academic unit. As the major component of the transformation of undergraduate education on the New Brunswick Campus, the School of Arts and Sciences accepted its first incoming class of 4,004 first-year and 1,171 transfer students in the fall of 2007.

After earning master’s and doctoral degrees at Cornell University, Greenberg went on to a distinguished academic career at Lawrence University, Princeton University and USC. At Princeton, he served as associate dean of the faculty for four years. From 1987 to 1993, while vice president of the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS), he was also a visiting professor at Rutgers. Greenberg has written extensively on the history of early America and American law, and on technology, scholarship, and libraries. He also lectures and writes about the Holocaust, comparative genocide, and Jewish identity in the post-Holocaust United States.

“Doug Greenberg is ideally suited to serve as executive dean,” McCormick said. “Having known him for many years, I am confident that the School of Arts and Sciences – and indeed the entire university – will benefit from his enthusiasm, vision and leadership.”

Over the past two decades, Greenberg also has provided leadership and direction for major organizations focused on academic research and outreach, serving as president and director of the Chicago Historical Society, president and CEO of the Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation and vice president of ACLS. He also is a former chair of the New Jersey Historical Commission and California Council for the Humanities.

”The professional opportunity to assume leadership of the School of Arts and Sciences is also a deeply personal opportunity for me to return to both my personal and academic roots,” Greenberg said. “I look forward to the challenge ahead and to joining the distinguished faculty of the school in pursuing new achievements in research and education.”

Greenberg was selected for the executive deanship following a nationwide search chaired by G. Terence Wilson, professor of psychology at Rutgers’ New Brunswick Campus.

McCormick praised professors Ziva Galili and Peter Klein, who served as acting executive dean and acting executive vice dean, respectively, “for the tremendous work they have done in leading the School of Arts and Sciences for the past two years.”