University introduces new dean

By Brian McNeill

Published: April 24, 2008

Ever since Edward L. Ayers announced in November 2006 that he was exiting the University of Virginia to lead the University of Richmond, UVa has been hunting for the right candidate to follow him as dean of the College and Graduate School of Arts & Sciences.
On Thursday afternoon, UVa President John T. Casteen III announced that the university has hired a new dean to lead the College — Meredith Jung-En Woo, a nationally recognized expert on political economy and East Asian politics.
“Her vision and her passion seem to be enabling elements of what the College will need moving forward,” Casteen said at a ceremony at Carr’s Hill at UVa. “Her aspirations are both grand and achievable.”
Woo, 49, is a political science professor and associate dean for social sciences in the College of Literature, Science and the Arts at the University of Michigan. She will begin her new post at UVa on June 1.
Woo said she was eager to accept the job because the College is “unique in its uncompromising commitment to undergraduate students.”
As dean, Woo said she intends to respect the “venerable tradition” of the College’s past, while also imagining possibilities for its future. UVa and the state of Virginia are becoming increasingly diverse and globalized, she said, and her appointment is another step toward embracing that change.
“The College can only grow and prosper as the new century unfolds,” she said.
Woo, a native of Seoul, South Korea, came to the United States in 1976 to study at Bowdoin College. She went on to graduate magna cum laude in 1980, majoring in English literature and history. She received her master’s degree in international affairs and Latin American studies, as well as her doctorate in political science, from Columbia University. She is fluent in English, Korean and Japanese.
She has authored and edited seven books, including her most recent work “Neoliberalism and Reform in East Asia,” which was published in September and was the result of a project sponsored by the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development and the Rockefeller Foundation.
Woo was also the executive producer of a documentary film titled “Koryosaram, The Unreliable People,” about Stalin’s ethnic cleansing of Koreans. It premiered in 2006 at the Smithsonian and went on to win the best documentary award from the National Film Board of Canada.
“It is clear that this was a person of vision and great intellect who could look beyond discipline boundaries,” said Jim Galloway, an environmental sciences professor at UVa who helped lead the dean search.