Adam Falk, Dean of the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences, was appointed the 17th president of Williams College on Monday.
Williams has been searching for a president ever since their last president Owen Schapiro left to become president of Northwestern in July.
Falk admitted that after being at Hopkins for over 15 years, taking on his new position will be bittersweet.
"I'm obviously very excited about it," Falk said. "Williams is an extraordinary institution, but I'm equally sad to leave Hopkins. It's going to be a hard place for me to leave."
"It's happy for him, but sad for us," Jerome Schneidman, secretary of the Board of Trustees, said. "He was a great dean, and we wish him well, he's just a great guy. I'm sorry to see him leave, but our loss is Williams' gain."
For Williams, Falk promises to bring a fresh perspective. As a former physics professor and renowned theoretical physicist, he will be the first president of Williams with a science background since 1872.
He will also be one of very few Williams presidents who is neither an alumnus nor a previous faculty member of the college.
"He'll bring an outside perspective, but I think he will also bring an appreciation for liberal arts education and commitment to undergraduate education and life which is obviously very consistent and necessary here at Williams," Greg Avis, chair of the Williams Board of Trustees, said.
Avis also said that he hoped having a scientist as a president would open the door for potential new interdisciplinary collaborations within Williams.
"I think it will help to send an image to the world about the importance of sciences at Williams as a liberal arts college, " Avis said.
"From what we've heard about him, so far so good. He's young and hopefully accessible to the student body, but the proof is in the pudding."
However, he also felt that the Hopkins Arts and Sciences school and Williams had a lot in common.
"He essentially runs a liberal arts college within Johns Hopkins. Deans are given a lot of autonomy. I think there's a lot of parallels," Avis said.
Falk agreed that despite the differences between Hopkins and Williams, he felt he was well prepared to take up the presidency at Williams.
"Hopkins was wonderful preparation for two reasons: intellectually the schools are very similiar, neither is all that large and both are very committed to interdisciplinary work and to academic excellence," Falk said.
Professor Beverly Wendland, head of the Biology Department said that it saddens her that Falk will be leaving.
She said that he was always very supportive of the department's efforts to increase their faculty, and that on a personal level, he was always very kind.
"I have a dog that I take for a walk at lunch every day, and he knew my dog by name and always petted her. He said he wanted a dog just like her, and that really endeared him to me," Wendland said.
Mel Kohn, a sociology professor who has worked at Hopkins for 25 years, agrees that Falk will be sorely missed. According to Kohn, deans of Falk's caliber are few and far between.
"In my time here, we've had some wonderful deans and we've had some terrible deans, and Falk is just about the most wonderful of them. It's a great loss for Hopkins but it is wonderful for Williams," Kohn said.
Student reaction to Falk's leaving is mixed. Some who have had the experience of being in contact with Falk agree that he was someone who was always pleasant, and genuinely interested in the well-being of Hopkins's undergraduate population.
Sophomore Jason Shapiro, a Woodrow Wilson scholar, said that although he never spoke with him personally, Falk was always present at Woodrow Wilson meetings and seemed very friendly.
"From what I've seen, he seems to be very enthusiastic for undergraduate students and their experience at Hopkins. Seeing him from across the room, he was always smiling and laughing and seemed like a really approachable guy," Shapiro said.
Other students admitted that before being asked by The News-Letter, they had no idea who he was.
"Who is Dean Falk?" Senior A.J. Wessels asked.
Falk first came to Hopkins as an assistant professor in the Physics department in 1994, and then moved his way up to the rank of professor, followed by vice dean and finally dean of the Krieger School. He has won teaching awards from both Hopkins and Harvard.
Falk will leave Hopkins in April 2010. Dennis O'Shea, the spokesperson for the University, said that President Daniels will organize a nationwide search for Falk's replacement.
However, specific plans for how to conduct the search have not yet been discussed.
The Student Government Association (SGA) president Marc Perkins said that traditionally SGA did not work closely with Falk.
Perkins said that as head of the entire school of Arts and Sciences, Falk "probably had more important things to do" than meet with the SGA.
According to Perkins, the SGA has not been asked to join the selection committee to find a replacement dean.
"I think it would be great to be involved, but it's not something that's essential. What Dean Falk did was ... more than just work with undergrads," Perkins said.
In terms of Falk's plans for Williams, he said that they are not yet fully formed.
"I think any time one moves to a new institution, the first thing you need to do is to really learn that institution, and spend a lot of time listening. The best ideas are the ones that come up out of the people," Falk said.
Falk also added that he will greatly miss the people he has worked with at Hopkins, but he hopes that the work that he has done to unite the departments in the Arts and Sciences school will be continued by the next dean.
"I'm going to miss so much about Hopkins. I've been here for more than 15 years and I absolutely love Johns Hopkins," Falk said.
"Hopkins has a reputation outside of it as being tough and unfriendly, but nothing could be further from the truth. It has been just an extraordinary group of people in the institution to have worked with, and I'm certainly going to miss them tremendously."
