Lisa Perfetti Named Provost at The College of Wooster
WOOSTER, Ohio – Lisa Perfetti has been named provost at The College of Wooster, effective August 1. As the college’s chief academic officer, she will have broad responsibility for Wooster’s academic and co-curricular programs, including curriculum, faculty development, athletics, libraries, and academic administration and support areas, as well as the College of Wooster Art Museum, the Center for Advising, Planning and Experiential Learning, and the College of Wooster Nursery School.
Perfetti currently serves as associate dean for faculty development, and professor of French and English at Whitman College in Walla Walla, Wash. In the dean’s role, which she has held since 2011, Perfetti has worked closely with Whitman’s provost and others on academic program planning, faculty hiring and retention, curriculum revision, and diversity and equity initiatives, including chairing the search for the college’s inaugural chief diversity officer. She also directs Whitman’s Center for Teaching and Learning.
“I am delighted that Lisa Perfetti will be our next provost,” said Wooster President Sarah R. Bolton. “She brings tremendous insight and experience, a passion for Wooster’s distinctive educational model, and a keen interest in helping us seize the opportunities ahead. I am certain that she will provide strong leadership and help us chart a great course for the future.”
Prior to her appointment at Whitman, Perfetti spent 15 years at Muhlenberg College in Allentown, Penn., where she was hired as a lecturer in French in 1996. She was promoted to assistant professor in 1998 and associate professor in 2004. She served as director of Muhlenberg’s Center for Ethics from 2004 to 2006, and director of the Faculty Center for Teaching from 2007 to 2011.
“I am excited and honored to have this opportunity to work alongside the staff and faculty of The College of Wooster,” Perfetti said. “During my visit on campus, I was impressed by the college’s commitment to diversifying its faculty and staff, to inclusive teaching and learning, and to helping students integrate the academic and co-curricular dimensions of their college experience to build toward their plans and aspirations for the future. I am really looking forward to getting to know the students and learning about what Wooster has meant to them.”
Perfetti earned her bachelor’s degree in French from the University of Michigan, where she was elected to Phi Beta Kappa, and her master’s degree and doctorate, both in comparative literature, from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
The College of Wooster is America’s premier college for mentored undergraduate research. Wooster offers an excellent, comprehensive liberal arts education, culminating in a rigorous senior project, in which each student works one-on-one with a faculty mentor to conceive, organize and complete a significant research project on a topic of the student’s own choosing. Through this distinctive program, every Wooster student develops abilities valued by employers and graduate schools alike: independent judgment, analytical ability, creativity, project-management and time-management skills, and strong written and oral communication skills. Founded in 1866, the college enrolls approximately 2,000 students.
Posted in News on March 29, 2019.
