Jen Scanlon's Future Plans
To the Bowdoin community,
I am writing today to share the news that Jen Scanlon has decided to step down as senior vice president and dean for academic affairs at the end of the 2025–2026 academic year to resume her teaching and scholarship. Jen, who is Bowdoin’s John S. Osterweis Professor of Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies, will return to the classroom in the fall of 2027 following a well-deserved sabbatical year.
I am so grateful to have been able to work with Jen during my first years at Bowdoin. In my time here, I have relied more than I can say on her institutional knowledge, her care and thoughtfulness, and her deep and varied experiences as a member and mentor of our faculty. She has been a vital and respected colleague for previous Bowdoin presidents, a key and insightful resource for the board of trustees, and a valued and trusted partner to her senior colleagues. Jen has also been an indispensable advisor to me at a time when challenges in higher education have grown increasingly persistent and complex.
We will have an opportunity in the coming year to celebrate Jen more fully, but for now I want to share just a few highlights from her time as our dean for academic affairs. Since assuming the role in 2020, a few months after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, Jen has been a strong advocate for the faculty, leading and supporting them through the then-unknown territory of remote teaching and learning while helping the president’s office and senior team make complex decisions as the College navigated the crisis. As dean, Jen has worked to amplify the power of the humanities and embed inclusive excellence in all aspects of the academic program. She has worked with faculty committees and departments to respond to rapid changes in technology as well as in higher education. She has also designed and implemented faculty leadership programs and played key roles in the renovation of Sills Hall and the development of the Schiller Coastal Studies Center and the Roux Center for the Environment.
In addition to serving in this pivotal role of supporting faculty scholarship, creative work, and teaching, Jen is herself an accomplished historian and gender studies scholar and a talented teacher. She has received several awards for her teaching throughout her career in the classroom, including being chosen by the senior class to give the Karofsky Faculty Encore Lecture at Bowdoin in 2005. Jen and her scholarship have been recognized with numerous grants and research awards, and she has received attention in scholarly publications and mainstream media outlets for her work, including for two of her books, Until There Is Justice: The Life of Anna Arnold Hedgeman (Oxford University Press, 2016) and Bad Girls Go Everywhere: The Life of Helen Gurley Brown (Oxford University Press, 2009), which was named a Book of the Times (The New York Times), a Must Read Book (Sunday Times London), and Best Business Book of the Year (Marketplace).
I will be working with the Committee on Governance and Faculty Affairs to develop a process for selecting Jen’s successor and will share more information about that soon. Please join me in thanking Jen for her skillful leadership and commitment to supporting the work we do here. I look forward to this next year of working with her in this role.
All my best,
I am writing today to share the news that Jen Scanlon has decided to step down as senior vice president and dean for academic affairs at the end of the 2025–2026 academic year to resume her teaching and scholarship. Jen, who is Bowdoin’s John S. Osterweis Professor of Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies, will return to the classroom in the fall of 2027 following a well-deserved sabbatical year.
I am so grateful to have been able to work with Jen during my first years at Bowdoin. In my time here, I have relied more than I can say on her institutional knowledge, her care and thoughtfulness, and her deep and varied experiences as a member and mentor of our faculty. She has been a vital and respected colleague for previous Bowdoin presidents, a key and insightful resource for the board of trustees, and a valued and trusted partner to her senior colleagues. Jen has also been an indispensable advisor to me at a time when challenges in higher education have grown increasingly persistent and complex.
We will have an opportunity in the coming year to celebrate Jen more fully, but for now I want to share just a few highlights from her time as our dean for academic affairs. Since assuming the role in 2020, a few months after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, Jen has been a strong advocate for the faculty, leading and supporting them through the then-unknown territory of remote teaching and learning while helping the president’s office and senior team make complex decisions as the College navigated the crisis. As dean, Jen has worked to amplify the power of the humanities and embed inclusive excellence in all aspects of the academic program. She has worked with faculty committees and departments to respond to rapid changes in technology as well as in higher education. She has also designed and implemented faculty leadership programs and played key roles in the renovation of Sills Hall and the development of the Schiller Coastal Studies Center and the Roux Center for the Environment.
In addition to serving in this pivotal role of supporting faculty scholarship, creative work, and teaching, Jen is herself an accomplished historian and gender studies scholar and a talented teacher. She has received several awards for her teaching throughout her career in the classroom, including being chosen by the senior class to give the Karofsky Faculty Encore Lecture at Bowdoin in 2005. Jen and her scholarship have been recognized with numerous grants and research awards, and she has received attention in scholarly publications and mainstream media outlets for her work, including for two of her books, Until There Is Justice: The Life of Anna Arnold Hedgeman (Oxford University Press, 2016) and Bad Girls Go Everywhere: The Life of Helen Gurley Brown (Oxford University Press, 2009), which was named a Book of the Times (The New York Times), a Must Read Book (Sunday Times London), and Best Business Book of the Year (Marketplace).
I will be working with the Committee on Governance and Faculty Affairs to develop a process for selecting Jen’s successor and will share more information about that soon. Please join me in thanking Jen for her skillful leadership and commitment to supporting the work we do here. I look forward to this next year of working with her in this role.
All my best,
Safa