Vice Provost and Dean Moheb Ghali returning to faculty position

Moheb Ghali, who has served as vice provost for Research and dean of the Graduate School at Western Washington University since 1993, has decided to return to his faculty position as professor of Economics.

Ghali is the fourth and the longest serving dean of the Graduate School at Western, and is the first to occupy the position of vice provost for Research.

“It has been a pleasure working with Dean Ghali. His keen insights into Western were invaluable to me as I assumed the role of Western’s provost. I wish him well in this transition and in this next stage of his career,” said Catherine Riordan, Western’s provost and vice president for Academic Affairs.

Riordan also noted the instrumental role Ghali has played in helping the careers of many faculty members at Western.

Ghali will begin a year of leave on March 15, 2012, to work on research projects he has long planned and will assume his faculty position on March 15, 2013.

As Graduate School dean, Ghali initiated a number of innovative programs, including a writing program for teaching assistants in the sciences that was featured at a National Science Foundation conference on innovations; a Work-Study research assistantships program that was adopted by a number of other universities; the graduate students’ Diversity Recruitment and Retention program, a fund to enhance theses research, and funding graduate students’ travel to conferences.

As vice provost for Research, Ghali initiated the Scholars’ Week in order to highlight undergraduate research and created a program that funds undergraduate research and scholarship. He also started a number of programs to support faculty research and scholarship, including the Project Development Fund, Support for Journal Editing, the Pilot Project funding, and the Summer Research and Summer Teaching programs.

Ghali is an acknowledged national leader in graduate education. He chaired the executive committee and served as president of the Western Association of Graduate Schools and was elected to the board of the national association of graduate schools (Council of Graduate Schools, or CGS) and served on its executive committee, chaired the Investment Committee and the Master’s Focused Institutions Committee of that board. He also served on the executive committee of the Graduate Record Examination (GRE) and chaired its Services Committee. He served on a review panel of graduate funding programs for the National Science Foundation. Because of his expertise, he was invited to review and make recommendations regarding structural changes in graduate education and research for a number of public and private universities.

Professor Ghali remains an active scholar. He was selected as Senior Fulbright Scholar in 1994 and again in 2001. He served the professional academic international organization in his research field (production Economics and Inventories), chairing its Economics section and serving on the Executive Committee for 10 years and as president for two years. Ghali received that organization’s Outstanding Service Award. During his tenure as vice provost and dean at Western, he published 10 papers on Economics and Econometrics in academic journals as well as four papers on graduate education.