PROVIDENCE – Starting this month, Julie Plaut has been hired by Brown University to fill the newly created assistant dean of the college and director of faculty engagement and research position.
A result of the Swearer Center’s 2016 strategic plan, the position will see Plaut focus on integrating public service, through the Swearer Center for Public Service, with the school’s academic goals and achievements. She will help facilitate the creation of a community of engaged faculty, fellows and graduate students at Brown and include faculty from regional higher education institutions.
In addition, Plaut will be responsible for the management of the Ernest A. Lynton award – an honor given to full-time faculty members without tenure status who strive to include tenants of community engagement in their teaching.
She is looking forward to the new role, saying it “felt like a distinctive opportunity to come to a place that has really committed to engaged scholarship as a core aspect of its educational mission and identity.”
Plaut has extensive experience with community engagement, having chaired the board of Jewish Community Action, co-chaired the board of Minnesota Alliance With Youth and served on the board of the Prairie Oaks Institute. She has also served on organizations committed to engaged scholarship such as the Association of American Colleges and Universities, Community-Campus Partnerships for Health, and Imagining America.
Plaut holds a doctorate in history from Indiana University, where she taught several engaged courses in American studies and helped to establish and lead the campus office for community partnerships, and a bachelor’s degree in urban studies from Stanford University, where she held multiple student leadership roles with the Haas Center for Public Service. She was most recently the executive director of the Minnesota Campus Compact in Minneapolis. Her tenure at Brown will begin on April 23.
Emily Gowdey-Backus is a staff writer for PBN. You can follow her on Twitter @FlashGowdey or contact her via email, gowdey-backus@pbn.com.
