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September 3, 2015

Education dean plans to step down

lesgoldAlan Lesgold, dean of the School of Education since 2000, will step down in August 2016.

Under Lesgold’s leadership, the School of Education has embraced long-term strategic planning, redesigned key programs to meet student needs, and continued to foster research of impact among its faculty. He has recruited more than half of the school’s tenured and tenure-stream faculty, helped the school raise over $57 million, and increased overall grant funding.

In 2014, he worked with Renée and Richard Goldman to endow the school’s deanship. Deans of the school now are known as the Renée and Richard Goldman Dean of the School of Education.

Chancellor Patrick Gallagher said: “Dean Lesgold has served to further strengthen the University’s School of Education. His dedication to helping produce educators prepared to impact the lives of children at all educational levels in all types of neighborhoods, as well as supporting incisive research within the school, has made a positive impact both in our area and nationwide.”

Lesgold also was instrumental in expanding collaborations between the School of Education and the Learning Research and Development Center (LRDC), creating the Center for Urban Education, and developing centers on healthy lifestyle and motivation, engagement and persistence.

Provost Patricia E. Beeson said: “Alan’s leadership of Pitt’s School of Education has been transformative. His ability to think broadly about research has helped establish the School of Education as an important resource for collaborative work at the University, and his commitment to translating academic work into initiatives that contribute to local and global communities has demonstrated the tremendous impact that universities can have on the world around them.”

Lesgold received his PhD in psychology from Stanford in 1971 then joined Pitt’s psychology faculty. He served as LRDC associate director 1986-97 and as executive associate director 1997-2000.

A search committee will be formed to identify Lesgold’s successor.

Filed under: Feature,Volume 48 Issue 1

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