News Release

Kessler Appointed Dean of Arts and Sciences

Kessler, the school's Charlotte Bloomberg Professor and a student of medieval, Jewish and Byzantine art, has been chairman of the Department of the History of Art for all but two of his 22 years at Hopkins.

President William R. Brody recommended Kessler's appointment to the executive committee of the board of trustees at a special telephone meeting today [May 6]. Kessler will begin his new position July 1.

"His is an extraordinarily distinguished career, in his scholarship, in his teaching and in the leadership of his department," Brody said. "Of all the very strong candidates for dean -- and the finalists were all leaders of major departments at distinguished universities -- Dr. Kessler best articulated a vision for the future of Arts and Sciences."

"Herb Kessler is a distinguished scholar who has done a superb job in leading his department to a position of national renown," said Provost Steven Knapp, who led the search committee for the position.

"He is admired by his colleagues for his dedication to academic values, and he has a clear sense of what needs to be done to advance the Krieger School to a new level of excellence," Knapp said.

Kessler said a major issue he wants to tackle is how better to integrate a strong and growing undergraduate program with the university's traditional mission as a research and graduate institution.

"Hopkins cannot afford to and should not dilute its strong tradition of doing cutting-edge scholarship and scientific research," Kessler said. "The challenge will be to bring the undergraduates into that tradition."

"I really care about teaching, and I expect the faculty to embrace the dual mission of teaching and research," he said.

Other priorities, Kessler said, include promoting collaboration across disciplinary lines, and in some cases rethinking disciplinary boundaries altogether. He said he also will encourage greater Arts and Sciences cooperation with the other eight academic and research divisions at Hopkins.

Seeking resources for new initiatives and for student aid, both undergraduate and graduate, will also be an important part of his job in the last two years of the $1.2 billion Johns Hopkins Initiative, Kessler said.

Kessler will take over a school that is the university's oldest. With departments touching on the work of all the Johns Hopkins professional schools, it is considered the core of the university. It has about 260 full-time tenured or tenure-track faculty and enrolls about 2,600 undergraduates and more than 900 each of full-time and part-time graduate students.

The school faced a financial crisis in the late 1980s and early 1990s, but now is in a much stronger position, thanks to costs restraints, a larger student body in both full-time and part-time programs, and support from donors such as alumnus Zanvyl Krieger, who committed $50 million to the school's endowment. The university's latest financial plan projects a balanced budget for the Krieger School in each of the next five years, the first time that has happened since long-term financial planning began in 1988.

"This is a wonderful moment for me to take over," Kessler said. "I'm very grateful to (predecessor deans and interim deans) Lloyd Armstrong, Matt Crenson, Steve Knapp, Arthur Davidsen and Richard McCarty for opening the way for me."

Kessler, 56, is a 1961 Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the University of Chicago. He earned a master of fine arts degree in 1963 and a Ph.D. in 1965, both from Princeton University. He joined the Chicago faculty in 1965 and became chairman of the Department of Art and university director of fine arts before coming to Johns Hopkins 1976. He was elected a fellow of the Medieval Academy of America in 1991 and of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1995.

Kessler's wife, Johanna Zacharias, is director of communications for the Krieger School. Their daughter, Morisa Kessler-Zacharias, is a sophomore at Barnard College.