On Wednesday afternoon, the University of New Hampshire announced that Jim Dean, a former provost and executive vice chancellor at UNC, would become its 20th president. Dean will begin on June 30.
In August of 2017, Dean stepped down from his position as provost at UNC for then-unknown reasons. Prior to his four years as provost, he had worked at the Kenan-Flagler Business School for 15 years as a member of the faculty and eventually as the dean of the school.
In the provost position, Dean hired seven deans for the University and helped guide the 10-year review process for reaccreditation with the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges.
His resignation from the University was announced alongside the news of who his replacement would be: Robert "Bob" Blouin, who had previously served as dean of the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy. Many professors took issue with the immediate replacement, citing the four-month national search that had taken place to hire Dean as provost in 2013.
At the University of New Hampshire, Dean will be responsible for a flagship research university with 16,000 students in more than 200 fields of study. He was unanimously approved by the University System of New Hampshire's Board of Trustees.
