Quick Links

New Deans for COM, SSW

Pulitzer-winning journalist and longtime Social Work leader assume top posts

By Chris Berdik and Caleb Daniloff

Former Miami Herald editor Tom Fiedler (COM’71) named COM dean

Boston University’s College of Communication welcomed back one of its own this week, naming Tom Fiedler, former executive editor of the Miami Herald, its new dean.

“I cannot tell you how thrilled I am about this,” says Fiedler (COM’71). “It was at COM that I learned the skills that set me off on a career in journalism and gave me the appreciation of what that profession meant.”

On June 1, Fiedler will succeed Tobe Berkovitz, a COM associate professor of communication who was appointed dean ad interim in September 2006, following the resignation of Dean John Schulz.

“Tom brings to his new position the fresh external perspective of a distinguished, visionary professional journalist. I am absolutely delighted that he is on board,” says University Provost David Campbell. “He is inheriting a college that, thanks to the excellent stewardship of Dean ad interim Tobe Berkovitz, is primed to work collectively to move COM forward to still greater levels of excellence.”

Berkovitz praises his successor as a “consummate professional, a person with strong ties to BU, and someone with a thorough understanding of the role that COM plays at this University.”

Fiedler, who has been a member of BU’s Board of Overseers, was selected from 75 applicants reviewed by a search committee made up of BU faculty and two COM students. He received COM’s Distinguished Alumni Award in 2003.

“Tom Fiedler is extremely thoughtful, very knowledgeable about the College of Communication, and collegial in his management style,” says Louis Lataif (SMG’61, Hon.’90), Allen Questrom Professor and dean of the School of Management, who led the committee. “He earned a professional reputation as a world-class journalist, a newsroom leader of impeccable integrity, and a person who leads effectively and steadfastly, not by fiat but by consensus.”

Click here to read more about Fiedler’s career.

 

 

New SSW dean is expert in obsessive, hoarding disorders

Gail Steketee, dean ad interim of the School of Social Work, will officially drop the “ad interim” from her job title on June 1. Steketee has been elevated to the top post following two nationwide searches by the University.

Steketee, who has been the provisional head of SSW since 2005, sat out the first search, launched two years ago, preferring to retain her faculty role and active research agenda.

“After our last search was not successful, it became clear that it was important to our faculty and administrative staff, and to the provost and the president, that I be a candidate for the role,” Steketee says. “I think that they felt I would be able to provide sensitive leadership for the School of Social Work from a position of strength in my academic career and my relationships with faculty and staff to move our many agendas forward over the coming years.”

“I am truly delighted that Gail Steketee will be our next dean of SSW,” says University Provost David Campbell. “Having worked with her for nearly three years in her role as dean ad interim, I know that she understands intimately the opportunities and challenges facing the school. She has developed, with the full support of the faculty, a strategic vision for SSW that combines maintaining its strong tradition of teaching and professional training while enhancing its efforts in research and scholarship.”

Steketee joined BU in 1986. She was named associate dean for academic affairs in 1996 and cochair of the clinical practice department in 2000. As a researcher, she has received several grants from the National Institute of Mental Health, including a $1.17 million award in 2005 to study compulsive hoarding. She has conducted numerous studies of the psychopathology and treatment of obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), panic, and obsessive compulsive spectrum conditions, which include body dysmorphic disorder and hoarding. She has also written numerous articles and chapters on OCD, related anxiety disorders, and compulsive hoarding, and has published three books on OCD for clinicians and for sufferers and their families, as well as two books on compulsive hoarding.

Click here to read about Steketee’s priorities as dean.