President Larry Bacow will announce today that he has recommended
Jamshed Bharucha, the Dean of the Faculty at Dartmouth University, to serve as Tufts' next provost. Bharucha will replace Sol Gittleman, who announced last October that he would step down after 21 years in the post.
Bharucha will officially take over on Aug. 1. Gittleman, who plans to remain in his on-campus home for another year, will meet with Bharucha upon his arrival at Tufts and work to ease his transition.
A professor of psychological and neurological sciences, Bharucha was personally selected by Bacow after a nationwide search for candidates, which included some applications from within the Tufts community. Bacow's decision remains subject to approval by the Board of Trustees.
As provost and senior vice president, Bharucha will oversee the academic affairs of the entire University, including all campuses and graduate programs.
"I'm so thrilled and so relieved and so happy," Gittleman said of the selection. "He is so interdisciplinary. How many lines can you cross?"
Bacow made the selection in conjunction with a six-member search committee, in which Gittleman said there was a "real buy-in" on the selection of Bharucha.
Bharucha joined the Dartmouth faculty in 1983 and was named the John Wentworth Professor of Psychological and Brain Sciences in 1997. In the same year, he was appointed Associate Dean of Faculty for the Social Sciences. Bharucha served as Deputy Provost for one year and was appointed Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences in 2001.
Gittleman said the transition from Dartmouth to Tufts should be particularly smooth. "Dartmouth is the perfect institution for us to bring a provost in from. It's a teaching university where everybody does research," he said.
After graduating from Vassar College with Phi Beta Kappa honors, Bharucha earned a master's degree in philosophy from Yale University and completed a Ph.D. in psychology at Harvard University. He received national recognition for his research on the perception of music by the human brain and has served as editor of two psychological journals, Music Perception and Journal of Experimental Psychology.
Bharucha has spoken about music perception on National Public Radio (NPR) and lectured on the topic throughout the US and other countries. He has published articles in numerous psychological journals in addition to The New York Times, US News and World Report, and Discover magazine.
Bharucha currently teaches introductory psychology, cognition, and advanced seminars in the perception of music. He is also an accomplished violinist. While at Vassar, he chaired the budget and finance committee of the Board of Trustees for four years.
Gittleman has held his position for over 21 years, serving under three University presidents. Throughout his tenure as provost, he has received two Fulbright scholarships, two honorary degrees in humane letters, and several awards for outstanding teaching. His class, Yiddish Literature, is among the most popular at Tufts.
