Bostic joins COLA on June 27

Sunday, June 5, 2016
New UNH COLA Dean Heidi Bostic

Heidi Bostic begins her new role as COLA's dean on June 27.

Heidi Bostic begins her new role as dean of the College of Liberal Arts this month.

Bostic will assume leadership on June 27, following the retirement of Kenneth Fuld, who served as the college's dean, with distinction, for many years.

“Heidi is a very talented scholar and leader and has great experience fostering relationships between the humanities and the STEM disciplines,” says P.T. Vasudevan, interim provost and vice president for academic affairs. “Her no-nonsense approach and leadership experience will serve the college and the university well and help us to develop the strategic partnerships we need to expand career opportunities for students and to enhance the college’s teaching and research portfolios.”

Bostic, a professor of French, was previously the inaugural director of interdisciplinary programs for the College of Arts and Sciences at Baylor University and chair of its department of modern languages and cultures.

“It will be an honor and a great privilege to serve as dean of the College of Liberal Arts,” Bostic says of her new role at UNH. “The college boasts outstanding faculty, staff and students as well as innovative programs. The research enterprise is impressive — even more so combined with the excellence in teaching and community engagement that is a hallmark of liberal arts.”

At Baylor, Bostic’s accomplishments included chairing the organizing committee for the university’s first two symposia on STEM and the humanities, leading Baylor’s largest academic department, securing significant gifts for student study-abroad scholarships and facilitating the development of the department’s first-ever mission statement and strategic plan. She also led efforts to create a new major in Arabic and Middle East Studies and grew the department by five faculty members.

Prior to her work at Baylor, Bostic served at Michigan Technological University, where she was interim chair of the department of humanities, as well as Concordia College and Minnesota State University. Last year, she received the Higher Education Administrator of the Year award from the Texas Foreign Language Association and was appointed to a three-year term on the Modern Language Association’s Committee on the Status of Women in the Profession.

“I believe in the mission of UNH — that is, a public, land-, sea- and space-grant institution — and the absolutely central role of the liberal arts in fulfilling that mission,” Bostic notes. “The college is especially well equipped to work across disciplines to address the grand challenges of today and tomorrow. Underlying all grand challenges are questions that are basic to liberal arts fields, namely: What does it mean to be human, and how can we live well together? Education, the fine and performing arts, humanities and the social and behavioral sciences all have a significant role to play in answering these questions. I look forward to working with faculty, staff and other stakeholders to foster continued excellence in the college.”