Paula Allen-Meares selected to lead University of Illinois at Chicago
Dean of social work is member of Institute of Medicine of the National Academies
The University of Illinois Board of Trustees approved the appointment of Paula Allen-Meares as chancellor of the University of Illinois at Chicago at their meeting in Chicago on July 24.
Allen-Meares will take office on Jan. 15, 2009, and assume the helm of a UIC campus that ranks 47th nationally in federally funded research, enrolls 25,000 undergraduate, graduate and professional students, employs 12,000 faculty and staff and operates with a total annual budget of about $1.7 billion.
"Today's world needs UI's knowledge and expertise. My years in the academy have taught me one essential truth: There are no small challenges for our communities, our nation, and our planet," Allen-Meares said in her acceptance remarks.
"This university -- in the very heart of Chicago -- has taken and will need to continue to take a leadership role in solving pressing societal needs," she said. "And we will need to join together with other institutions and individuals -- in a highly collaborative manner, with unique university and community partnerships -- if we are to make a real difference."
The chancellor serves as the executive officer of the UIC campus and reports to the president of the University of Illinois in a system that, in addition to the Chicago campus, includes campuses in Urbana-Champaign and Springfield and the University'sā online Global Campus.
Allen-Meares has been dean of the top-ranked School of Social Work at the University of Michigan since 1993 and is the Norma Radin Collegiate Professor of Social Work and professor of education at that university. Prior to joining the University of Michigan, Allen-Meares was a professor and dean of the School of Social Work at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where she received her master's and doctoral degrees. She earned her bachelor's degree at the State University of New York at Buffalo.