Dr. Richard Finkelstein has been selected dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Mary Washington. As the chief academic officer for the college, he will oversee matters regarding faculty, the curriculum, academic programs and academic support for the College of Arts and Sciences. Finkelstein, who begins at UMW July 1, 2010, will succeed Rosemary Barra, who has served as acting dean since July 1, 2004.
Finkelstein has been chair of the English department at the State University of New York (SUNY) at Geneseo for the past nine years. During his tenure, he helped create a new major in creative writing and a new minor in film studies and helped to win National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education endorsement for the School of Education at SUNY Geneseo. He has promoted courses in Asian-American, African-American, Native-American and post-Colonial literatures, while maintaining the English department’s strength in British and American literatures.
He has held leadership roles on several not-for-profit boards that support young children in the Rochester, N.Y., community. A scholar of Renaissance drama and Shakespeare, he has published essays and reviews on a variety of topics, including Renaissance drama, religion, rhetoric and poetry.
Finkelstein received his Ph.D. in English from the University of Chicago and his B.A. from Williams College, where he graduated magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa with Honors in English.
