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News Release

Last modified: Monday, July 25, 2011

New associate deans appointed at IU's College of Arts and Sciences

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 25, 2011

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- Political Science Professor Jean C. Robinson has been named the executive associate dean of the Indiana University College of Arts and Sciences, the first appointment made by Larry D. Singell Jr., the new dean of the college.

Robinson has served as associate dean in the College since 2008, first as associate dean for undergraduate education and, until July 1, 2011, as associate dean for faculty and academic programs.

Professor Maria Bucur-Deckard, who holds the John W. Hill Chair of East European History in the Department of History, has been named the College's new associate dean for faculty and academic programs.

"Professor Robinson and Professor Bucur-Deckard have served the college in a variety of capacities, with energy and distinction," Dean Singell said. "In my first year at Indiana University as dean, it was important that I find top-notch people to fill these two posts that are vitally important to the successful functioning of the College. I'm delighted that Jean has agreed to continue to serve the College in an administrative capacity, and that Maria has joined the dean's office."

Robinson's scholarly interests are social change and social movements, especially those movements that are directed at achieving greater levels of equality. Originally a China specialist, she also has done research in Eastern Europe, Western Europe and the U.S.

She currently is involved in an extensive research project that examines debates among Americans over equality politics in education policy, analyzing attempts to establish equality in education -- through programs such as Title IX and equalization of funding policies -- at both the federal and several state levels.

Robinson earned her Ph.D. at Cornell University. During her tenure at IU, she has served as director of women's studies and dean for women's affairs. In 2007-08, she was interim dean of IU's Hutton Honors College. In the Department of Political Science she has served as director of undergraduate studies as well as director of graduate studies, and as director of the Leadership Ethics and Social Action program (LESA).

She received the IU President's Award for Distinguished Teaching (1996), the George Pinnell Distinguished Service Award (2007) and eight other teaching and service awards. She received the national Pi Sigma Alpha Teaching Award in 2004.

Robinson has published widely, including Living Gender After Communism (2006, co-edited book with Janet E. Johnson) and a study on abortion policy in France (2001). She works extensively with graduate students and has published several pieces with them. She is a founding member of the international research group RNGS (Research Network on Gender, Politics and the State.) She has contributed to the volumes Comparative State Feminism (1995) and Abortion Politics, Women's Movements, and the Democratic State (2001). In 2001, she served as editor the journal Women and Social Policy: From Local to Global.

Bucur-Deckard earned her Ph.D. at the University of Illinois. At IU, she has served as chair of the Department of Gender Studies and as director of the Russian and East European Institute. She also has been a member of the Bloomington Faculty Council, the New Academic Directions Committee and the University Faculty Council. She has won many national grants, among them a Fulbright-Hays and two NEH collaborative grants. She currently is working on a book about gender and citizenship under communism and post-communism.

Bucur-Deckard's latest book is Heroes and Victims: Remembering War in Twentieth Century Romania (Indiana University Press, 2009). Her first book was Eugenics and Modernization in Interwar Romania (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2002). She is the immediate past president of the Association for Women in Slavic Studies.

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