3/24/08

Office of the Chancellor

Chancellor Announces New Provost

As you know, a Search Committee of prominent community leaders and faculty members across campus disciplines conducted a national search for a new provost of the University of Massachusetts Lowell with assistance from Korn/Ferry International.  After a thorough and open search process, I am pleased to announce that Ahmed Abdelal has accepted the position of provost at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. 

Dr. Abdelal has a proven track record for enabling students, faculty and administrators to pursue excellence in education as evidenced by his many accomplishments at Northeastern University and at Georgia State University.  He has been steadfast in his commitment to building quality access to public higher education in both the private and public sectors by creating innovative responses to recruitment and retention challenges as well as by building quality academic programs that meet the needs of students and employers.  His commitment to building truly interdisciplinary programs will enable him to build upon the work pioneered by many of the UMass Lowell faculty in this important area. In addition, Abdelal provided leadership for internationalizing the curriculum and for establishing partnerships for collaboration across disciplines with international institutions in world regions at GSU and at NU, another critical strategic direction for UMass Lowell.

As a scholar, Dr. Abdelal is a member of the American Academy for Microbiology, the American Society for Biological Chemists, and the American Society for Industrial Microbiology. He has published 62 refereed scientific papers and made many presentations at scientific meetings. His research was supported by grants from NSF, NIH, DOE, and the GA Research Alliance. He has published one administrative article and made numerous presentations at national meetings on topics in higher education. He completed a B.Sc. in Food Science at Cairo University, Ph.D. in Microbiology at the University of California, Davis, and post-doctoral work at the same institution and at the Institute for Microbiology at the University of Gottingen, Germany.

Dr. Abdelal is strongly committed to a collaborative leadership style which is critical to my vision of how we will all work together as a community to build our University into a nationally renowned institution.  His effectiveness in deploying this approach in tackling challenging issues in higher education was the subject of a highly complimentary case study that was authored by faculty from the Harvard Institutes of Higher Education (Case Book published in 2002.) Dr. Abdelal will take on his official role as provost on June 2.  He will begin preparing for his role as provost on May 12 with a series of briefings with key constituencies on campus.

I would like to close by thanking the Search Committee for their outstanding efforts on behalf of the University.  They worked together collaboratively to ensure that the University recruited the best candidates who would serve our collective mission.  The process they put in place was well-received by the University community and I have received a great deal of correnspondence commending the process they followed.  I would especially like to thank Julie Chen and George Behrakis for co-chairing the Committee with such professionalism.  Finally, I believe we all owe a great debt of gratitude to Interim Provost Donald Pierson whose leadership of academic affairs during this transition period has been exceptional and ensured continuous movement toward a path to excellence for the University.

I know that you will join me in welcoming Dr. Abdelal to the campus.