By Laurie Babinski
Editor in Chief
Mixing faculty, staff, curriculum and classes is enough to keep anyone spinning in circles. Then add in the trials of preparing and moving into the new Keck Science Center and overseeing the remodeling of RAC 100, and the result is a typical day for Natural Science Division Chair Dr. Carolyn Vos Strache.
And after four years of the chaos, Vos Strache announced on Feb. 15 the end of her four-year cycle as chair and the succession of Director of Laboratories Dr. Doug Swartzendruber to division chairperson.
“We’re in such an ex-citing time,” Vos Strache said. “I think it’s also a time for new leadership.”
The most notable change during Vos Strache’s term has been the completion of the new science center, which opened in summer 2001.
“It’s fun to be at the end of this time frame,” Vos Strache said. “The facilities have been transformed.”
But while the major difference outsiders see within the division is its new location, Vos Strache has also focused on openness among personnel and enrollment and recruitment for the division.
“The honesty that we have in a face-to-face situation has been very important to me,” she said. As chair, she has made it a point to call faculty in for yearly reviews and show them their rank, tenure and promotion form before its submittal.
Vos Strache has also spearheaded change for falling recruitment numbers by changing the admission process for incoming freshmen. “We have had fewer science students declare a major,” she said. “And numbers also show that undeclared majors tend not to declare science majors.
“Our chances are better if they start out as science majors rather than undeclared majors,” she continued. The remedy is a plan to weight applications to help admit under-enrolled majors.
“I think part of the administrative role is solving problems,” Vos Strache said. “That’s why new leadership is so important. New leaders solve problems in new ways.”
The search for Vos Strache’s successor began in September.
Swartzendruber, who has been at Pepperdine one year this January, is a retired professor from the University of Colorado.
“I didn’t know about Carolyn’s term ending,” Swartzendruber said. “But faculty kept encouraging me to apply. It’s a bit humbling to have the support of the faculty.”
Swartzendruber, who teaches tumor biology, hopes to focus curriculum and technical integration.
Despite his recent arrival, Swartzendruber doesn’t expect he’ll have a problem achieving his goals.
“On my application, I put that my disadvantage was that I didn’t know the politics and personalities of this school,” he said. “Then I turned around and said that my advantage was that I didn’t know the politics and personalities of this school.”
Vos Strache will leave on a one-year sabbatical Aug. 1. During that year, she plans to observe colleagues at the University of Utah to study sports psychology. She will return as a full-time professor in fall 2003.
February 21, 2002