Dear UO faculty and staff colleagues,
It is my pleasure to announce that Carol Stabile has been named dean of the Robert D. Clark Honors College. Carol has served as interim dean since 2020. She was selected following a national search with input from our incoming Provost and Senior Vice President Chris Long, as well as feedback from faculty, staff, and students at the honors college and others on campus who attended the search events.
Carol has propelled the honors college forward over the last four years as interim dean through collaborative and innovative programs. She joined the University of Oregon in 2008, initially serving for six years as director of the Center for the Study of Women in Society. She later served as head of the Department of Women and Gender Studies (now Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies) and as interim divisional dean for social sciences and then associate dean for strategic initiatives in the College of Arts and Sciences.
The search committee and I were impressed by Carol’s record of successful interdisciplinary collaborations across the schools and colleges. She implemented a new core faculty model in the honors college that combines the strength of CHC faculty fellows and the strengths of CHC career faculty, with both groups participating equally in faculty governance.
She has increased diversity in CHC hiring, with more than 80 percent of new staff hires and 50 percent of new faculty appointments from groups historically underrepresented in higher education. Likewise, she has increased the disciplinary diversity of the honors college by drawing faculty from music, art, journalism, law, and other areas of expertise on campus.
Provost Long observes that “Carol is a widely respected scholar and educator whose collaborative leadership stye has elevated the quality of the honors experience at the University of Oregon. I look forward to working with Carol when I arrive in June to further advance a culture of equity, belonging, and trust that will enhance undergraduate research, academic excellence, and interdisciplinary collaboration within the Clark Honors College and across the university.”
Carol holds master’s and doctoral degrees in English from Brown University and a bachelor’s degree in English from Mount Holyoke College. She has authored and edited numerous books and journal articles.
I want to thank the search committee, chaired by Bruce Blonigen, the Edward Maletis Dean of the Lundquist College of Business, for their commitment to this important search.
Please join me in congratulating Carol on her permanent appointment as dean, which takes effect on May 22, 2024.
Sincerely,
Karen Ford
Interim Provost and Senior Vice President
What I’ve heard about her isn’t good. She sounds here like just another diversity-obsessive, when that stuff hopefully is receding. I would hesitate to recommend this Honors College to a good, serious student.
Actually there is at least one complaint about her from an under-represented faculty group. My experience with her was that she sucks up and punches down.
Thin Commitments
Background Reading from 2020Eugene Weekly:
https://eugeneweekly.com/2020/06/17/uos-thin-commitment-to-racial-justice/
One paragraph from the 2020 op-ed in the Eugene Weekly is relevant to this hire:
“Faculty of color have nowhere to go with complaints of racial bias, hostility or discrimination. We used to have an Office of Affirmative Action and Equal Opportunity. At a time when a large group of faculty of color reported a systematic experience of racialized harm by a white dean, the university fired the affirmative action officer overseeing the complaints”.
Hearsay Evidence, offered for the truth of the matter
CAS Admin to Higher Admin/Interim Provost type: “should I apply for the CHC Dean job?
Higher Admin: “No. That’s Carol’s job.”
All you need to know is that Stabile is a classic ‘dark triad’ personality: https://www.psychologytoday.com/ie/blog/out-the-darkness/202203/the-danger-dark-triad-leaders
In between the collapse of last year’s ‘search’ and this ‘national search’ which she ‘won,’ she did plenty of work to ‘befriend’ those above her who were not already convinced that she is just ‘misunderstood’ by the now dozens of faculty, many who are junior, women, and/or faculty of color, who have been purposefully damaged by her behavior and actions over the years. Our interim provost is at the top of that list of who Stabile worked to her benefit. I can promise that this will not be the last UOMatters post that references Stabile.