Kathleen Sherman Named Vice Provost for Undergraduate Affairs by Colorado State University

Note to Reporters: A photo of Kathleen Sherman is available with this release at news.colostate.edu

Kathleen Sherman, Ph.D., J.D., chair of the Department of Anthropology at Colorado State University, has accepted the position of Vice Provost for Undergraduate Affairs at the university.

Sherman will assume her new position on July 1, when Alan Lamborn moves from the vice provost’s office into his role as Executive Director of the Reinvention Center, a consortium of research universities dedicated to improving undergraduate education, housed on the CSU campus.

“Dr. Sherman brings a unique skill set to the office of Vice Provost for Undergraduate Affairs,” said Rick Miranda, CSU Provost and Executive Vice President. “She has been recognized by the university for the quality of her undergraduate teaching with numerous awards, including a Monfort Professorship. She is also a proven administrator who has ably led the Department of Anthropology since 2009. Dr. Sherman will be a valuable addition to the Provost’s Office, and we welcome her.”

As Vice Provost, Sherman will be a member of CSU President Tony Frank’s Cabinet, with responsibility for overseeing all university graduation requirements, as well as course and curriculum matters and undergraduate education resources.

“I am excited to move into the Vice Provost’s office,” Sherman said. “I look forward to being involved in all aspects of undergraduate education on campus as well as working closely with Student Affairs and other departments on campus to facilitate the CSU learning experience.”

Sherman, a cultural anthropologist, has been on the CSU faculty since 1997. She earned her doctorate in Anthropology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and her law degree at New York University of Law, after her bachelor’s at the College of William and Mary.

Sherman’s research focuses on political economy and the effects of globalization, and the role of local institutions in the construction of the world-system, both currently and throughout history. Her research on the Pine Ridge, Cheyenne River and Rosebud Indian reservations in South Dakota involves issues of economic development, time allocation, social network analysis, native entrepreneurship, access to credit, and welfare reform.

She worked as a legal services attorney in Pine Ridge and is interested in comparative legal systems, alternative dispute resolution, and the economic effects of legal structures, and has published three books: Lakota Culture; World Economy; and Welfare Reform in Persistent Rural Poverty. Sherman also has published work in “American Anthropologist,” “Rural Sociology,” “Journal of Economic Issues,” “Research in Human Capital and Development,” “Human Ecology,” and “American Indian Culture and Research Journal.”

Sherman is the President of the High Plains Society for Applied Anthropology, and the Associate Director of Educational Programs for the School for Global Environmental Sustainability at CSU.
 

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