Dr. Caroline Solomon named Dean of the Faculty 

Provost Dr. Khadijat K. Rashid, ’90, announced on November 16 that Dr. Caroline Miller Solomon will become Dean of the Faculty at Gallaudet University, effective January 2, 2024.  

Dr. Solomon has had a robust record in teaching, research, and service in her 23 years as a faculty member. While she was a Biology faculty member, she was involved with faculty governance by serving on various committees, including the Council for Undergraduate Education and Faculty Welfare Committee, both of which she chaired. She also served as chair of the University Faculty Senate from 2016 through 2018 before becoming chair of the then-Department of Science, Technology, and Mathematics (DSTM).  

When Academic Affairs adopted its five-school system in 2020, she was elected by her peers as director of the School of Science, Technology, Accessibility, Mathematics, and Public Health (STAMP). Because of her long-time experience in leading the work of merging a myriad of programs within DSTM, she agreed to serve as lead school director in the restructuring of Academic Affairs. She served in that capacity until August 2023, when she went on a leave of absence to focus on several research projects. 
 
Dr. Solomon is a highly regarded biology faculty member, having taught introductory biology, ecology, marine biology, and senior capstone courses. She has also supervised internships that have taken students out on the nearby Anacostia River. She has served on a number of honors capstone, master’s thesis, and dissertation committees on campus and at other universities. “As someone who has co-taught with Dr. Solomon, I can attest to her warmth and excellence in the classroom,” said Rashid. 

Dr. Solomon also is an internationally recognized researcher who has created partnerships with colleagues in Scotland, Canada, and Germany. She has been invited to present at several colleges and universities, the American Geographical Society, and the Association of the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography. She has published scholarly articles in Microbes and Environments, Journal of Marine Research, Environmental Monitoring and Assessment, and Nature Ecology & Evolution. She also has served as principal investigator or co-principal investigator on grants from the National Science Foundation (S-STEM and Developing Experiential Accessible Framework for Partnerships and Opportunities in Data Science for the Deaf community), Northrop Grumman Foundation, and Proctor & Gamble. The upcoming STEM Sign Language Lexicon Summit in March 2024 is funded by the National Science Foundation. 
 
Dr. Rashid thanked the Dean of the Faculty search committee, especially its co-chairs, Dr. Gaurav Mathur and Dr. Concetta Pucci, PhD ’13. 

Dr. Paige E. Franklin, ’91, has served as Interim Dean of the Faculty since last summer. Dr. Franklin, a tenured professor of English, will become Director of Operations in the Office of the Provost.