Dr. Jonathan R. Franz, who has over 15 years of administrative experience in academic and student affairs in higher education, has accepted the position of vice president for the Residential College at Tusculum College.

"I am very excited about joining Tusculum College," Dr. Franz said. "My family and I are looking forward to living in the Greeneville area. I am especially excited about how I can help Tusculum move forward in this time of growth and change."

Dr. Franz will assume the position of vice president for the Residential College on Sept. 1. His responsibilities will be the administrative and academic operation of Residential College including the individual academic departments, the Competency Center, the Service Learning Program, student services, the registrar, the library, foreign study programs and the federally funded TRIO Programs.

His duties will include support for Residential College faculty; participation in program review, faculty evaluations and major curricular changes; and coordination of academic purchases and faculty recruitment and retention.

Dr. Franz is coming to Tusculum from Newberry College, a Lutheran-affiliated school in Newberry, S.C., where he has served as vice president for academic affairs since 1995. In that position, he supervised 14 department chairs, the registrar, and the directors of assessment, academic advising, the honors program, the "communication across the curriculum" program, the library and the academic skills center.

During his time as chief academic officer at Newberry College, Dr. Franz helped shape a team-taught, seminar-based general honors program, a service learning program and a program in Christian vocation and church leadership development. He also gained faculty and administrative approval for major revisions in faculty evaluation procedures and program assessment processes.

Since July 1999, Dr. Franz served as chief planning officer at Newberry, leading revisions of that college's mission statement, creation of a five-year plan and implementation of a highly participatory institutional planning and budgeting process. The planning activities at Newberry have involved students, faculty, administrators, board members and alumni.

Dr. Franz has over 20 years of college teaching experience and more than 15 years of administrative experience in both academic and student affairs, primarily at Newberry and St. Andrews Presbyterian College in Laurinburg, N.C.

In 1981, Dr. Franz began his professional career as assistant professor in the Department of Psychology at St. Andrews. He was promoted to associate professor and awarded tenure in 1988.

From 1985 to 1988 Dr. Franz served as chairman of the Psychology Department and as chairman of the Freshman Experience Program at St. Andrews. In 1988, he became associate dean for faculty development, a position he held for four years until he was named dean of students in 1992.

Dr. Franz received his doctoral degree in psychology from the University of Buffalo in 1981. He earned a bachelor of arts degree, magna cum laude, in psychology in 1974 at Hiram College in Ohio.

Dr. Franz's wife of 21 years, Elaine, is assistant director of the Newberry County Library. The couple has two sons, A.J. (Alexander Jonathan) who is entering his sophomore year at Kenyon College majoring in physics, and Daniel, who will be entering high school in the coming fall.

Editor's note: In November 2001, Dr. Franz was appointed provost and academic vice president to oversee all of Tusculum's degree programs, both the Residential College and Professional Studies programs for working adults.