Harvard College announced today two key appointments at the Phillips Brooks House Center for Public Service and Engaged Scholarship as it expands efforts to connect students and faculty who share an interest in working to improve communities.
Charles Warren Professor of the History of American Education Julie Reuben of the Graduate School of Education has been chosen as the inaugural faculty director, and Travis Lovett has been named assistant dean of civic engagement and service. The announcement came in an e-mail to students from Danoff Dean of Harvard College Rakesh Khurana on Tuesday afternoon.
In his email, Khurana noted the important role that the Phillips Brooks House has played in cultivating on campus a culture of public service, a core value of the College.
“For more than a century the Phillips Brooks House has been the focal point for public service in all its many forms at Harvard,” he said. “Today, we continue to see service as central to our mission of educating citizens and citizen leaders.”
Reuben and Lovett were selected following a search that brought together a broad selection of representatives from the community. The Assistant Dean Search Committee was chaired by Mark Gearan, director of the Institute of Politics at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government and interim faculty dean at Winthrop House, and Sheila Thimba, Harvard College dean of administration and finance, who served as interim dean for public service for the last year.
“It was important to us that we conduct the search in a highly inclusive manner, reflecting the wide-ranging interest that our community has in these roles and in the work of PBH in general,” Thimba said. “We were able to do that by working closely with students, faculty, staff, alumni, National Advisory Board for Public Service, and the FAS Faculty Standing Committee on Public Service.”
