Professor Approved by Trustees as Arts and Sciences Dean

Posted on May 7, 2009

Karen M. Gil, Lee G. Pedersen Distinguished Professor of psychology and professor of psychiatry, will be the next dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, effective July 1. Her appointment was approved by UNC trustees in late May.

Gil has been on the faculty since 1995 and twice has served as senior associate dean in the college. She is now senior associate dean for social sciences and international programs, where she oversees the college’s social sciences departments and its international programs.

From 2001 to 2004, she served as senior associate dean for undergraduate education, and she chaired the psychology department from 2004 to 2007.

Gil is a fellow of the American Psychological Association and the Society of Behavioral Medicine and is the author of numerous publications on health psychology, acute and chronic pain, stress and coping, and childhood medical illness.

She received her doctorate in clinical psychology from West Virginia University in 1985 and her bachelor’s degree in psychology with highest honors from the State University of New York at Stony Brook in 1978. Before coming to UNC, she was a faculty member at Duke University for a decade.

“We are fortunate to have someone with Dr. Gil’s impressive credentials and stature as a candidate to head our University’s largest and oldest academic unit,” Provost Bernadette Gray-Little wrote in a memo to faculty and staff. “With her background as a faculty member, researcher and administrator within the college, she is ideally suited to lead our faculty, staff and students in addressing future challenges, not only on our campus but also around the world.”

Gil’s selection followed a national search that included the deliberations of an advisory search committee headed by law school Dean Jack Boger ’74 (JD).

Bruce Carney, Samuel Baron Distinguished Professor of physics and astronomy and senior associate dean for the sciences, has served as interim dean since last July, when Holden Thorp ’86 left the position to become chancellor. Carney will serve as interim provost following Gray-Little’s acceptance of the chancellorship at the University of Kansas, which was announced May 29. Gray-Little’s new post is effective Aug. 15.

---