Ric Sheffield Named Associate Provost

Associate Professor of Sociology and Legal Studies Ric S. Sheffield has been appointed associate provost for a three-year term commencing in July. He will succeed Richard L. Switzer, who is retiring from the College at the end of June following his one-year appointment. Professor of Psychology Sarah Murnen, whose three-year appointment was scheduled to end this summer, will serve for another year as one of the two associate provosts working with Provost Gregory P. Spaid.

Sheffield joined the faculty in 1989, following a ten-year career in state government as an assistant Ohio attorney general. A graduate of Mount Vernon High School who attended college, graduate school in sociology, and law school at Case Western Reserve University, Sheffield conducts research in areas ranging from law and public apology to African-American history in rural Ohio. In addition to having published articles and reviews on legal history, the right to a fair trial, free speech and the press, and the legal profession, Sheffield is completing a manuscript on the enforcement of the Fifteenth Amendment and the struggle for Negro suffrage in post-reconstruction Ohio. He was the first director of Kenyon's law and society concentration and he continues in that capacity today.

"I am delighted that Ric Sheffield has accepted my invitation to serve as an associate provost," says Spaid. "As well as bringing to this role the skills of an outstanding teacher and department chair, Ric brings several years of prior administrative experience in state government, including service as the chief of Ohio's consumer protection division. There is no doubt that Ric is already a gifted and seasoned administrator."

Murnen began her tenure as an associate provost in July 2002. In the fall of 2006, Murnen plans to return to the classroom, where she specializes in social and personality psychology.

Prior to his position as associate provost, Switzer served as the registrar at Kenyon, a position he had held since 1984. During that time, he also served as the dean for academic advising for three years and the dean for academic support for five years. He will retire at the end of June after more than twenty years of service to Kenyon.

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