By Anne-Marie Seltzer

Special to the Gazette

Barbara J. Nelson, vice president and Distinguished Professor of Public Policy at Radcliffe College since 1994, has been appointed the first permanent dean of UCLA's new School of Public Policy and Social Research. Nelson, an internationally known political scientist, educator, and author will assume her position on Nov. 1. She will also hold a second appointment as professor of policy studies.

"We are very proud to have had our vice president selected to lead this new policy school. It is an extraordinary professional opportunity for Barbara," wrote Radcliffe College President Linda S. Wilson in a letter to the College staff earlier this week. "Nevertheless, we will miss her leadership, creativity, and energy."

"Serving as vice president of Radcliffe College has been a great honor," said Nelson. "I am proud to have been able to play a role in moving the College forward through the Reframing Initiative. I am grateful to everyone who made my tenure here so rewarding."

As the chief officer for academic programs at the College, Nelson provided leadership, strategic planning, and oversight and evaluation for the College's portfolio of education, research, and public policy programs, and served as an ex officio member of the board of trustees.

At Harvard, she taught a course on women and politics to undergraduates in the Government Department. Among Nelson's academic contributions during her tenure at Radcliffe was her direction of the National Diversity and Problem Solving Summer School, the only multidisciplinary workshop for curriculum enhancement in professional and graduate schools in the country.

Nelson's tenure at Radcliffe has been marked by creative academic leadership. To develop opportunities for the College to move to a new level in its educational programming and in its contributions to research and policy, Nelson worked closely with Wilson to reorganize the College and reframe its educational mission.

The reorganization of the College into two major branches -- Radcliffe Educational Programs and Radcliffe Institutes for Advanced Study -- will increase the impact of the College's previously successful, but disparate, programs. The reshaping of the educational programs will address the evolving interests and needs of students in a rapidly changing world.

Nelson has played a critical role in the first year of implementation of these plans, engaging broad staff participation in several working groups to develop specific ideas and plans. Undergraduates are the first beneficiaries: expanded and redesigned Radcliffe Research Partnership, Externship, and Mentor Programs are already in place, and Tamar March, former vice president for academic affairs and dean of the faculty at New England College, has been recruited to the position of Dean of Radcliffe Educational Programs and director of Radcliffe Undergraduate Programs.

Nelson came to Radcliffe College in 1994 from the University of Minnesota, where she was a professor at the Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs and the director of the institute's Center on Women and Public Policy.

Her writings include four books and more than 50 chapters and articles. She and coauthor Najma Chowdhury won the 1995 Victoria Schuck Prize for Women and Politics Worldwide. In 1989, Nelson and historian Sara Evans won the Policy Studies Organizations Prize for the best book in the field of policy analysis for Wage Justice: Comparable Worth and the Paradox of Technocratic Reform.