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Bernadette Gray-Little, a psychology professor and longtime advocate for the needs of undergraduate students, has been named to the new position of senior associate dean for undergraduate education in the College of Arts and Sciences.
Risa Palm, college dean, said the appointment was among administrative changes crucial to the success of a dramatic overhaul of the student advising system as well as a host of other new efforts aimed at strengthening and personalizing the undergraduate experience.
The advising changes, part of a plan
developed by Palm called the Carolina Advising Initiative and supported with nearly $300,000 in new funding announced last September, respond to student concerns and key recommendations in a 1997 report by the Chancellor's Task Force on Intellectual Climate.
"Dr. Gray-Little's appointment sends a strong message to Carolina's more than 15,000 undergraduate students and their parents about the University's commitment to the new advising program as well as other important initiatives that will significantly improve what the University offers undergraduates both inside and outside the classroom," Palm said. "Bernadette is a highly respected faculty member and a distinguished clinical psychologist well known for her work on black Americans."
She has been keenly interested in critical undergraduate education issues on our campus for more than 20 years. I am confident that her leadership, vision and experience will help guide the current campuswide push to enhance how our undergraduate students learn."
Gray-Little joins Palm and three other senior associate deans who oversee arts and humanities, social sciences and the sciences in examining ways to restructure and improve programs in the college, which is Carolina's largest educational unit and is considered the heart and soul of the University's intellectual and educational endeavors.
Besides carrying out the Carolina Advising Initiative, Gray-Little will oversee the new First-Year Seminar Program, which will begin in a pilot phase next fall; the Office of Undergraduate Research, which is emphasizing new ways to involve undergraduates in the University's research mission; the Honors Program; the James M. Johnston Center for Undergraduate Excellence, scheduled to open in 1999; and a previously planned curriculum review.
"This University offers both undergraduate students and faculty extraordinary opportunities to learn from each other," Gray-Little said. "I see my role as one that will seek to maximize such interaction in ways that will benefit the entire University community."
Gray-Little joined the Carolina faculty in 1971 after earning doctoral and master's degrees from St. Louis University, which presented her with the William Stauder Alumni Merit Award in 1997. She graduated from Marywood College in Scranton, Pa., which honored her as a distinguished alumna in 1996.
Gray-Little is past chair of the psychology department, where she also has directed the clinical psychology program. Her research interests include the association of ethnicity and social status to self-esteem, decision-making strategies in marital relationships, relationship violence, and the influence of demographic characteristics on diagnostic accuracy.
A recipient of the Spencer Foundation Young Scholars Research Award, Gray-Little has earned fellowships from the National Research Council, the Fulbright program and the National Institute of Mental Health.
She also is a fellow of the American Psychological Association and associate editor of the journal American Psychologist. Results of her research have appeared in numerous scholarly journals, publications and books.
Her University service has included stints on chancellor's search committees and chancellor or trustee panels dealing with such issues as accreditation and tenure. She chaired the Chancellor's Advisory Committee from 1997 to 1998.
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