Jackie Krasas named Dean of the College and Dean of the Graduate School of Arts & Sciences

Jackie Krasas

A message from President Susan R. Wente and Provost Michele Gillespie

Dear students, faculty and staff,

Following the completion of a national search, we are pleased to announce that Jackie Krasas, Ph.D., will join Wake Forest University as the Dean of the College and Dean of the Graduate School of Arts & Sciences. She will begin July 1.

Dr. Krasas comes from Lehigh University, where she currently serves as deputy provost for faculty affairs. She brings extensive scholarship, teaching and administrative experience to her role as Dean. We are confident she will further enhance and extend Wake Forest’s reputation for academic and research excellence while developing new ways to ensure our faculty and students flourish.

As deputy provost at Lehigh, Krasas leads a team who manages the full range of faculty employment, including recruitment and hiring, faculty development, and promotion and tenure, and has led several major initiatives, including a university-wide faculty salary equity and benchmarking study. She also served as Lehigh’s associate dean for interdisciplinary programs and international initiatives for six years and directed the women, gender and sexuality studies program for nearly a decade.

Dr. Krasas’ scholarship focuses on gender, race and employment inequality, work and family, sexual harassment, and non-standard work. She is the author of two books, “Temps: The Many Faces of the Changing Workplace” (2000) and “Still a Mother: Noncustodial Mothers, Gendered Institutions and Social Change” (2021). At Wake Forest, she will also hold a faculty appointment in the women’s, gender and sexuality studies department.

Krasas received a bachelor of arts degree in social relations from Lehigh and a master’s degree and Ph.D. in sociology with a specialty in gender studies from the University of Southern California. Prior to her arrival at Lehigh, she served for 10 years as a faculty member in the department of labor and employment relations at Penn State University, where she also directed the master’s program in industrial relations and human resources. Additional details are posted on the Wake Forest News website. 

We are immensely grateful to members of the search committee, who provided valuable insights throughout this process, and for the leadership of committee co-chair Dean Franco, Director of the Humanities Institute and Winifred W. Palmer Professor of English.

We also sincerely thank Anthony Marsh for his deep commitment and service as interim Dean of the College since last summer and Brad Jones, who has been an excellent leader for the Graduate School of Arts & Sciences for more than a decade.

Please join us in welcoming Dr. Krasas to the Wake Forest community. We also invite you to join us at a welcome reception to meet the new dean on Friday, March 17, in the Reynolda Hall Main Lounge (Green Room) at 3:30 p.m.