Jeff Gibeling announced last week that he will step down as vice provost of Graduate Education and dean of Graduate Studies next June, at the end of his latest five-year term.

Gibeling

Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi and Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor Ralph J. Hexter shared the news in a letter to the Council of Deans and Vice Chancellors: “On behalf of the entire UC Davis community, we write to express our sincere gratitude for his service to the enterprise of graduate education at UC Davis, not only as dean, but previously as chair of Graduate Council.”

Gibeling is a professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, where he maintains a lab. He joined the UC Davis faculty in 1984.

He served on the Graduate Council from 1991 to 1996 (including a year and a quarter as the chair) and as executive associate dean of Graduate Studies from 1996 to 1998. He moved up to dean in 2002.

Under his leadership, Katehi and Hexter wrote, “the Office of Graduate Studies has accomplished much of great value to our graduate programs and graduate groups — a legacy of accomplishments that has guided graduate education at UC Davis into a new century.”

Katehi and Hexter said the planning for a national search for a new vice provost and dean will begin soon. As part of the process, they said, they will engage with faculty, graduate students, staff and other constituents to understand critical issues in graduate education, and to hear people’s about the important attributes of the next dean.

The chancellor and provost said they will charge a recruitment advisory committee early in the fall, once the campus is back after summer break.

“UC Davis is a world-class institution thanks in large part to leaders like Jeff, and we are grateful that he plans to remain a part of our community once his successor is appointed,” Katehi and Hexter wrote.

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