Three Women Scholars Appointed to Positions as Deans at Major Universities

Wendy Fritzen Hensel is the new dean of the College of Law at Georgia State University in Atlanta. She has served as interim dean since this summer. Professor Hensel joined the faculty at the law school in 1999. She had served as associate dean for research and faculty development from 2012 to her appointment as interim dean in 2017.

Professor Hensel is a graduate of Michigan State University. She earned a juris doctorate at Harvard Law School.

Sonia Hirt was appointed dean of the College of Environment and Design at the University of Georgia, effective July 1, 2018. Currently, she is dean and professor at the School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation at the University of Maryland, College Park. Professor Hirt joined the faculty at the University of Maryland in 2016 after teaching in the College of Architecture and Urban Studies at Virginia Tech. She is the author of Iron Curtains: Gates, Suburbs and Privatization of Space in the Post-Socialist City (Wiley-Blackwell, 2012).

Dr. Hirt is a graduate of the University of Architecture and Civil Engineering in Sofia, Bulgaria. She earned a master of urban and regional planning degree and a Ph.D. in urban, technological and environmental planning at the University of Michigan.

Lisa Rosen-Metsch was named dean of the School of General Studies at Columbia University in New York City. She will begin her service as dean on January 1. Dr. Rosen-Metsch is the Stephen Smith Professor and chair of the department of sociomedical sciences at the university’s Mailman School of Public Health. Before joining the faculty at Columbia University in 2012, Dr. Rosen-Metsch taught at the University of Miami’s Miller School of Medicine.

Dr. Rosen-Metsch is a graduate of Columbia University, where she majored in sociology. She holds a second bachelor’s degree from the Jewish Theological Seminary and a Ph.D. in medical sociology from the University of Florida.