Announcement
May 2, 2005
Dear Colleagues:
It is with deep regret that I have accepted the resignation of Dean Carolyn Ban, effective August 1, 2006. Professor Ban, who has served as Dean of the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public and International Affairs since January, 1997, wishes to return to her research and teaching. Her decision to step down from the deanship will conclude almost ten years of very successful administrative leadership and service to the School and to the University.
Dean Ban received her baccalaureate degree in Political Science from Smith College, graduating cum laude, and earned her masters degree in Regional Studies of the Soviet Union at Harvard University; she earned the PhD in Political Science from Stanford University. She began her faculty career as Assistant Professor of Political Science at Ohio State University. After working as Policy Analyst and Acting Division Chief for the Civil Service Reform Act Evaluation Management Division of the United States Office of Personnel Management, she returned to academia, rising in the ranks from Assistant to Full Professor in the Graduate School of Public Affairs at the State University of New York at Albany.
Dr. Ban has served as a member of the Executive Council of the National Association of Schools of Public Affairs and Administration (NASPAA) since 1997, serving as President for two of those years. She is an active member of the American Society for Public Administration, serving in a number of capacities, including Chair of the Section on Personnel and Labor Relations and the National Finance Committee, as well as serving on the Board of Section on Women in Public Administration. In addition, she has been an active member of the American Political Science Association since 1966, acting as Secretary-Treasurer of the Section on Public Administration. During this time she has also been on the editorial boards of a number of professional journals, including Public Administration Review, Administration and Society, Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, Review of Public Personnel Administration, and Public Productivity and Management Review. Her books include How Do Public Managers Manage? Bureaucratic Constraints, Organizational Culture, and the Potential for Reform, now out in its third edition, and Public Personnel Management: Current Concerns, Future Challenges, also out in its third edition. She has also published an impressive number of articles and book chapters.
Dr. Ban was appointed Dean of the Graduate School of Public & International Affairs (GSPIA) at the University of Pittsburgh in January of 1997. She has made significant progress in strengthening the School’s faculty profile and research portfolio, aligning its curricula to faculty expertise, and building new programs of high quality. Under her leadership, a new major in Urban and Regional Affairs and a new masters degree program in International Development were established; the Ridgway Center for International Security Studies was expanded; and the Ford Institute for Human Security, the Johnson Institute for Responsible Leadership, a Nonprofit Clinic, and the Center for Public Policy and Management in Macedonia were created.
Under Dean Ban’s guidance, GSPIA has developed depth and breadth in its international connections, increased its enrollments, maintained its commitment to diversity and the education of international students, and positioned itself as a leader in the use of technology in the classroom and in the inclusion of students in the work of major research projects. Dr. Ban has worked tirelessly to triple the School’s endowment. In short, Dean Ban, with the support of her senior administrative team and faculty, has done impressive work to develop GSPIA’s core strengths, providing an important foundation for sustained growth.
It has been a real pleasure to work with Dean Ban, both in her role as dean and in her participation in the activities of our Council of Deans, and I am delighted that she will continue her academic career at the University as Professor in the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs. A search committee will be formed in the coming weeks with the intention of identifying Dean Ban's successor by next spring.
Sincerely,