EAST LANSING, Mich. - Michigan State University Provost Lou Anna K. Simon will recommend that Sherman W. Garnett, senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, be named the new dean of James Madison College at the April 9 meeting of the MSU Board of Trustees.
If approved, Garnett would assume his post on Aug. 1.
Before joining the Endowment in 1994, Garnett spent nearly a decade in the Office of the U.S. Secretary for Defense, most recently as deputy assistant secretary for defense for Russia, Ukraine and Eurasia. Upon leaving government service, he received the Defense Department Medal for Distinguished Civilian Service.
Garnett is a 1977 graduate of James Madison College. He holds a master's degree in Russian and Eastern European studies from Yale University and a Ph.D. in Russian literature from the University of Michigan.
He is a specialist on the foreign and security policies of Russia and Ukraine, their bilateral relationship and their relations with other former Soviet and Eastern European states.
"I am very pleased that the search for a new dean for James Madison College has been completed," Simon said. "I look forward to working with Dr. Garnett and thank the faculty, staff and students of James Madison College for their persistence and their many efforts in bringing to closure this very important undertaking."
James Madison College, a prestigious undergraduate liberal arts college of public affairs, was established in 1967. Since then, the college has graduated five Rhodes Scholars, eight Truman Scholars, four Marshall Scholars, seven Fulbright Scholars and four National Science Foundation Fellows. It enrolls approximately 1,000 students.