Dan Shannon, dean of the University of Chicago Graham School of Continuing Liberal and Professional Studies since 1996, has announced his intention to step down from his position by June 30, 2014.
“As the longest-serving dean of continuing studies at the University, Dan has enhanced the Graham School’s reputation and raised its profile nationally and internationally,” said Provost Thomas F. Rosenbaum. “He has established connections with divisional and professional school faculty, developed innovative degree and non-degree programs, and tirelessly pursued new opportunities at home and abroad, from China to Spain. Graham also serves the University as a powerful vehicle for community engagement.”
Said Shannon, “I am deeply appreciative to have been a part of the University of Chicago for nearly two decades, to have been a member of a truly remarkable institution. I am proud of the staff and faculty of the Graham School, whose work reflects the high expectations of our students and the University for quality and impact. As the Provost has noted, we have, in the spirit of Harper’s notion of university extension, grown programmatically and internationally and are positioned to continue that growth and change.”
The Graham School extends the University’s intellectual mission to a broad community of students who seek professional skills or personal development via part-time and flexible programs of study. Graham fosters UChicago’s rigorous approach to learning and scholarship in the form of graduate degrees, certificate programs, and open courses in the humanities, arts and sciences. The school provides visiting high school and college students with opportunities to study at the University through the Summer Session. Under Shannon’s leadership, it has begun to explore the use of technology to extend its domestic and international programs.
Before his appointment at Graham, Shannon served as dean of continuing education and professor of government and public administration at both the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee and California State University-Dominguez Hills in Carson, Calif. He is a former national president of the University Continuing Education Association, and in 1997, won its prestigious Julius M. Knolte Award for extraordinary contributions to continuing education.
Shannon has written widely on the subject and served as the editor of The Continuing Higher Education Review. He also has been a Kellogg Fellow at the University of Oxford.
A national search to identify Shannon’s successor will be led by a faculty committee chaired by Roy Weiss, the Rabbi Esformes Professor of Medicine and Pediatrics and Deputy Provost for Research. The faculty committee will be charged to provide recommendations to the Provost and the President, who will make the appointment.
—Prof. Jacqueline Stewart
