Achterberg To Be Recommended
As Dean Of The Schreyer Honors College

2-11-98
University Park, Pa. -- Penn State President Graham Spanier will recommend to the Board of Trustees that Cheryl Achterberg, acting dean of The Schreyer Honors College and professor of nutrition, be named as dean of The Schreyer Honors College. "We had a particularly outstanding group of finalists, any one of whom would have served us well in this position," said Spanier. "But Cheryl Achterberg brings to it a unique blend of attributes and experiences that we believe will help to establish The Schreyer Honors College as the best of its kind in the United States."

Achterberg is an award-winning teacher and researcher who has extended her expertise around the world through scholarship and public service. She received, among numerous other such recognitions, Penn State's Milton S. Eisenhower Award for Distinguished Teaching in 1995. The American Dietetic Association named her the Ruth M. Leverton Award winner in Nutrition Education in 1995. She has been principal investigator on numerous competitively funded research projects and has published more than 60 peer-reviewed papers, book chapters, and monographs. She has been active in international service with the U.S. Agency for International Development and the U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organization, and has served on numerous national and international advisory boards, panels and workshops.

Achterberg has advised and supervised numerous graduate students and honors students at Penn State and has taught four different honors courses in the College of Health and Human Development. She is a graduate of California Polytechnic State University at San Luis Obispo and earned her Ph.D. at Cornell University. During the 1996-97 year, she served as Fellow in the CIC Academic Leadership Program and as an Administrative Fellow.

The Schreyer Honors College was established in September 1997, endowed by a $30 million gift from William and Joan Schreyer. One of its unique features is its linkage with the Schreyer Institute for Innovation in Learning, a think tank to develop and test new approaches to learning. Larry Spence, director of the Institute, says: "Achterberg is a scholar of incredible integrity with a love of education as a means to individual freedom and development." John Cahir, vice provost and dean for undergraduate education, adds: "Her vision for the college is exactly what we want, that of a lively, outward-looking enterprise that would impact on the whole of Penn State."

President Spanier will submit Achterberg's name to the Board of Trustees at its next meeting on March 20.

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Contact: Bill Mahon (814) 865-7517 (office) (814) 237-5625 (home) np3@psu.edu