Davita Silfen Glasberg, current CLAS Associate Dean for Social Sciences and Undergraduate Education, will serve as interim Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences beginning February 1, 2017, when Dean Jeremy Teitelbaum will step down to become the University’s interim Provost.

Glasberg has served as an associate dean of the College since 2011. Prior to that, she was head of the CLAS Department of Sociology from 2004 to 2011.

Throughout her long period of administrative service to the College, she has continued her active research program. Her co-edited volume, Human Rights in our Own Back Yard: Injustice and Resistance in the United States (2011) won the Hirabayashi Book Award for Best Book from the Human Rights Section of the American Sociological Association in 2012. Glasberg co-edited the book with former graduate student William T. Armaline ’97 Ph.D., currently a professor at San Jose State University, and Bandana Purkayastha, professor of sociology at UConn.

Glasberg has also continued to teach her Introduction to Sociology general education class, and has overseen multiple projects to improve the caliber of the undergraduate educational experience in UConn’s largest college.

Glasberg joined UConn in 1988 as an assistant professor. Her research interests are political sociology and political economy; human rights; race, class and gender; and social inequality.

She earned her BA cum laude and a master’s degree in sociology from Brooklyn College of the City University of New York, and master’s and Ph.D. degrees in sociology from the State University of New York at Stony Brook.

“We have great confidence in her and know that she will bring strong academic values and excellent judgment to the leadership of the College,” said UConn President Susan Herbst in a statement. “Please join us in congratulating Professor Glasberg on this new position and in wishing her well.”