Claremont McKenna College announced Monday that Peter Uvin, currently the provost and a political science professor at Amherst College, will become CMC’s vice president of academic affairs and dean of the faculty, effective July 1.
“Peter’s extraordinary achievements, from award-winning scholarship and institutional development field work in Africa to his successful academic leadership at Tufts and Amherst, derive from powerful core values,” CMC President Hiram Chodosh said.
“He is deeply committed to human dignity and mutual respect, free inquiry and engaged deliberation, and the transformational impact of the teacher-scholar on the next generation of leaders,” Chodosh said. “These are the same values that will continue to sustain the singular contributions of Claremont McKenna College.”
Uvin, a native of Belgium, came to the United States 23 years ago and has been provost at Amherst for two years. He previously was academic dean at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University for six years.
Uvin’s academic specialization has been in the development, conflict and human rights areas, foremost in Rwanda and Burundi. In 2006, he was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship, which he used to conduct research in Burundi, one of the poorest countries in the world, on life in a post-civil war environment.
“I am very excited to start my new position. The mission and values of Claremont McKenna College are a perfect match,” said Uvin, who was selected from among several hundred applicants.
“When I came to CMC, I found passionate, hardworking and dynamic people everywhere — the faculty, the staff and the students,” he said. “This is how it should be at a place that values both analysis and action, and it is a community I would love to contribute to.”
As the chief academic officer of the college, Uvin will work with the president, faculty, staff and students to advance the mission and success of the liberal arts college. He’ll be responsible for leadership of the curriculum, the college’s many research institutions and centers, sponsored research, academic planning and advising, global and off-campus study, information technology services, the registrar, institutional research and other areas of the academic program.
Uvin will also work closely with the academic affairs committee of the Board of Trustees and with the academic deans of The Claremont Colleges and the joint Keck Science program.
— City News Service