Katherine Bergeron
Dean of the College and Professor of Music
Katherine Bergeron, a professor of musicology, currently serves as Brown's Dean of the College. Arriving at Brown in 2004, she served for one year as chair of Brown's music department in 2005, and took her current position in 2006. Her research deals with French cultural history of the 19th and 20th centuries, with an emphasis on music and language. Bergeron is the author of Decadent Enchantments (California 1998), a book about the revival of Gregorian chant, which won the Deems-Taylor Award from ASCAP in 1999. She is also editor of Disciplining Music (Chicago 1992) and Music, Rhythm, Language (California 2004), a special issue of Representations. Her book, Voice Lessons (Oxford 2010), a study of French language, poetry, linguistic science, and song, won the Deems Taylor Award in 2011, and the Otto Kinkeldy Award from the American Musicological Society, the highest honor accorded to a book by a senior scholar.
As Dean of College, Bergeron has worked systematically to enhance the value of Brown's unique open curriculum for the 21st century. In 2007 she convened a University task force to review the curriculum, then approaching its 40th year. The outcome of that review led to the development of new undergraduate advising programs, new goals for liberal learning, and new standards for Brown's undergraduate concentrations. She has overseen the creation of a drop-in advising center on campus, and a center for undergraduate teaching and learning in the sciences. She has worked collaboratively with colleagues across campus to build stronger alliances between the Office of the Dean of the College and the Division of Campus Life. Most recently, she has focused her energies on new initiatives relating to international education and advising for life after Brown.
