In May the UW Board of Regents approved the appointment of Sociology Professor Fred Campbell as the first dean of undergraduate education and vice provost.
Campbell, who has served as acting vice provost since Dec. 1, has been a UW professor since 1966 and was previously associate dean for undergraduate education in the College of Arts and Sciences.
“Improvement of undergraduate education is one of this university’s highest priorities,” says President William P. Gerberding. “With Fred Campbell’s able and enthusiastic leadership, we will continue to enhance the quality of the undergraduate experience.”
Provost Laurel Wilkening adds, “Our goal is to have one person acting as an advocate and source of information about undergraduate education university-wide.”
As associate dean, Campbell presided over the UW’s “entry-level initiative,” an effort to make beginning courses for undergraduates more engaging. The state legislature supported the program with a special $3.8-million allocation in its 1989-91 budget.
The UW reduced student/teacher ratios in introductory classes, hired “course coordinators” to maintain continuity over several class sections, offered laboratory sections in beginning physics and chemistry courses for the first time, created a viewing room where art history students could check out slides of artworks, and launched other efforts.
The purpose of these initiatives was “active learning,” Campbell says. Smaller classes have meant not just greater student/teacher interaction, but more writing assignments, encouraging students to do more independent thinking and analysis.
Along with the late History Professor Giovanni Costigan, Campbell was the first winner of a Distinguished Teaching Award when the program was launched in 1970. He was the recipient of the 1991 Hans 0. Mauksch Award for distinguished contributions to undergraduate education, presented by the American Sociological Association. He twice served as chair of the Department of Sociology, from 1978 to 1981 and from 1983 to 1988.