Rhetaugh Graves Dumas, dean of the School of Nursing, will be recommended to the Regents at their March meeting as the University’s vice provost for health affairs, effective July 1.
In announcing the recommendation, Provost Gilbert R. Whitaker Jr. said the primary responsibility of the position will be to work with him to foster cooperation among the various health units on campus, including the schools of Nursing, Public Health, Pharmacy, Dentistry and Medicine, as well as the School of Social Work.
Dumas will fill the role vacated by George D. Zuidema, vice provost for medical affairs since 1984, who begins his retirement furlough July 1.
Whitaker said the title is being changed from vice provost for medical affairs to vice provost for health affairs to more accurately reflect the new responsibilities of the position.
“Dr. Dumas will bring to the vice provost position a rich background in academic administration. She is known and respected throughout the University for her leadership of the School of Nursing and her contributions to the larger academic community,” Whitaker said.
Dumas joined the School of Nursing as dean and professor in 1981. Prior to coming to the U-M, she was deputy director of the Alcohol, Drug Abuse and Mental Health Administration at the National Institute of Mental Health in 1979–81 and chief of psychiatric nursing, Education Branch of the Division of Manpower and Training Programs in 1972–76.
Dumas was a member of Yale University’s School of Nursing faculty in 1962–72 and served as associate professor and chair of its Psychiatric Nursing Program in 1966–72. She has held many other administrative and teaching positions, including serving as director of nursing at the Connecticut Mental Health Center, Yale-New Haven Medical Center.
Among the many honors and awards she has received are honorary degrees from Dillard University in 1990 and Yale in 1989, and the Mentor Award from Sigma Theta Tau, International Honorary Society of Nursing in 1989.
She served as president of the American Academy of Nursing in 1987–89 and has been a member of the Institute of Medicine, National Academy of Sciences, since 1983.
Ada Sue Hinshaw, director of the National Institute for Nursing Research at the National Institutes of Health, will succeed Dumas as School of Nursing dean, effective July 1.
