Josef Sorett Appointed New Dean Of Columbia College

Upper West Side NY

25 May, 2022

3:57 PM

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By Irie Sentner Zachary Schermele, Columbia Daily Spectator • May 24, 2022, 2:25 PM University President Lee Bollinger has named Josef Sorett as the new dean of Columbia College and vice president of undergraduate education. Sorett is a professor of religion and African American and African diaspora studies, the chair of the religion department, and the director of the Center on African-American Religion, Sexual Politics and Social Justice. He will replace James Valentini, who has served as dean for a decade. The announcement marks a new page in the history of the College, considered by some as the "crown jewel" of the University, following a year of tension between administrators. The news comes at a time when the undergraduate experience has come under scrutiny and amid an impending crossroads for the University as it begins the search for Bollinger's successor—whose priorities will determine the role of the College in the University in the coming years. In an email to the College community on Tuesday, Bollinger called Sorett a "brilliant scholar, a beloved teacher, and a dedicated administrator." "Josef is a consummate Columbian, who brings to this position a deep commitment to the unique and special role of the Core Curriculum in our undergraduate education and to ensuring our students have the best possible experience, inside and outside of the classroom, at the College," Bollinger wrote. Sorett, who has a doctorate in African American studies from Harvard, has worked at Columbia since 2009. His scholarship focuses on the role of religion in shaping Black communities and movements. He and three other professors were instrumental in the establishment of Columbia's department of African American and African Diaspora studies in 2018. Bollinger called Sorett's courses in the Core Curriculum, African American Studies, and gospel music "immensely popular." Last week, Sorett received the Presidential Award for Outstanding Teaching. Sorett chairs the Inclusive Public Safety Advisory Committee, which was launched this past semester as part of the University's commitment to anti-racism. Sorett told Spectator in late February that the committee's work was intended to "lay a solid foundation for long-term work" and to build the idea of "inclusive Public Safety." The committee meets on a monthly basis to discuss Public Safety policies, training practices, and programs. Sorett also recently served on a task force that considered potentially changing the role of the College dean. The task force was convened by Bollinger in September 2021 to reconsider the contentious relationship between the College and the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, the budgetary unit under which the College and four other schools reside. Although much of the task force's work was done confidentially, documents reviewed by Spectator indicated that some on the task force, including Bollinger, had pushed to decrease the control of the College dean over academic, alumni, and student affairs. Sorett was part of a faculty subcommittee that proposed—in a document circulated within the task force in March—the creation of a more centralized curricular structure. It also advocated for "more transparency about the terms and process of decanal appointments." Instead of explicitly supporting diminishing the power of the College dean, the faculty members in that document stressed the importance of a functioning and collaborative Executive Committee—the body formed in the wake of the resignation of a previous College dean—which has tried, and largely failed, to generate structural consensus among FAS administrators. Sorett notably was not a member of the six faculty who separately pushed for the College dean to "report" to the dean of Arts and Sciences—a position that has a history of being at loggerheads with the College dean. The last academic year brought disagreements about the role of the Columbia College dean and the College's place within FAS that grew louder and more fraught before reaching a crescendo in May just before Valentini's departure. The College dean has long held unique powers at Columbia, particularly in alumni relations, given the centrality of the College to the University and the sheer number of College alumni who go on to become donors. For example, of the over 46,000 donors to the over $700 million Core to Commencement fundraising campaign, more than 32,000 of them were College alumni or parents. Though it has caused friction within University leadership for decades, the question of how influential the College dean should remain became a public point of significant contention over the past year as the task force conducted its work. The task force's final recommendations were produced in early April and recommended restructuring a powerful Committee on Instruction—a change Sorett was part of proposing—which would have altered the College dean's powers by removing the dean as co-chair. The recommendations also would have pushed the dean to share authority over student and alumni affairs with the executive vice president of Arts and Sciences. The report laid bare longstanding political fault lines between those who prefer greater and lesser centralization of authority in FAS, as well as disagreements about how much fundraising control the College should have over its alumni base. Rather than voting on the specific recommendations, the faculty voted in May on a set of three "principles" endorsing faculty governance of curriculum, "collaborative fundraising and combined development activities between Columbia College and the Arts and Sciences," and decanal review, which would set term lengths and create performance reviews for senior administrators in FAS. The first principle is the only one that is actually under the jurisdiction of the faculty. The rest simply signal to Bollinger the faculty's comfort level with them. The vote will gauge where faculty stand on the contentious issue of the College's place within FAS. The monthslong road that led to the faculty vote reignited passions and feuds, and left crucial stakeholders reconsidering what the College's future should look like—creating needles the incoming dean will be tasked with carefully threading. Sorett will also take the helm of Columbia College at a time when the world-class undergraduate experience the College advertises has come under examination. Over the last academic year, an inquiry into potentially expanding the undergraduate student body became the most in-depth investigation of the state of University life in recent memory. In a February presentation, the Core Curriculum and Student Life Working Group, chaired by Valentini, highlighted shortcomings in student life, course registration, and the Core Curriculum. In March, the Columbia College Student Council, in partnership with the working group, distributed a survey to the College student body to further inquire into student sentiment about expansion and University life. The survey received record-high participation with a response rate of 45 percent and illustrated the "current depth and breadth of dissatisfaction" among students, as Cristen Kromm, dean of undergraduate student life, characterized it. Founded in 1877, the Columbia Daily Spectator is the independent undergraduate newspaper of Columbia University, serving thousands of readers in Morningside Heights, West Harlem, and beyond. Read more at columbiaspectator.com and donate here.