Kansas associate dean chosen as CLAS dean at UF

April 8, 2008

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — The associate dean of humanities at the University of Kansas has been selected as the dean of the University of Florida’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, UF President Bernie Machen announced today.

Paul J. D’Anieri will assume his new position July 1. He succeeds Joe Glover, who has served as interim dean of CLAS since January 2007.

“Paul is a rising star and he has a fresh perspective and a lot of new ideas,” Machen said. “He’s a good find and a good fit, and we’re looking forward to having him at UF.”

D’Anieri said he’s eager to get started in his new role.

“I’m very excited to be coming to UF,” he said. “The faculty in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences is world class, and I was deeply impressed by everyone’s enthusiasm about the future. The students are talented, and the staff is dedicated. We can set our sights high.”

D’Anieri, 43, has served as associate dean of humanities in KU’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences since 2004. In that role, he was responsible for 14 units, 200 faculty members and a budget of roughly $20 million.

A scholar in international and domestic politics in the former Soviet Union with a special focus on Ukraine, D’Anieri was director of KU’s Center for Russian and European Studies in 2003-04, and he was associate dean for international programs from 1999 to 2003.

He has been a professor in the department of political science and the Center for Russian East European and Eurasian Studies since 2007, an associate professor from 1998 to 2007 and an assistant professor from 1991 to 1998. During the summer of 1998, he was a visiting associate professor in the department of government at Harvard University’s Ukrainian Research Institute, and in 1993-94 he was a Fulbright Visiting Scholar at L’viv State University in Ukraine.

D’Anieri has a bachelor’s degree in international relations from Michigan State University, a master’s in government from Cornell University and a doctorate in government, also from Cornell. He speaks Russian, Ukrainian and German.