NC State’s Graduate School can now welcome its new senior associate dean, Peter J. Harries, the former assistant dean of graduate studies at University of South Florida.
Harries is new to campus, but he is very familiar to the graduate world and university life. His research field is geology and paleontology, and although he loves the outdoors and doing field work, he also enjoys seeing grad students excel.
“I’ll admit I live vicariously through my students,” Harries said. “I prefer for myself a university setting because there’s just more students around. It’s not just cabinets of dead stuff, you know? It’s good to have live students and things like that to balance that out.”
Some of the specifics of Harries’ new job are still being figured out. The transition from USF to NC State has some differences in terms of graduate studies. His major task is to go through the student handbook and a series of university regulations that pertain to graduate education, he explained.
“I’ll be making sure that the two of them are congruent and going through them and seeing if there are things that just don’t make sense anymore,” Harries said.
Harries had temporarily replaced Rebecca Rufty, the previous associate dean who retired last December.
“[Harries] started July 1,” Sowell said. “I came over Jan. 1 to basically cover some of the responsibilities that he will assume. There was a vacancy in the staff for that period of time, so I agreed to come back and help out until we hired a new associate dean.”
Dean Emeritus of the Graduate School, Robert Sowell said Harries was the strongest of countless applicants for the job.
“He comes with a strong experience from his position at USF,” Sowell said. “We’re fortunate to have someone with that type of experience, and he’s certainly demonstrated since he’s been here much enthusiasm for the position and an eagerness to contribute. He knows about graduate education, but there are some things obviously that are unique to each institution. So he’s learning that and seems to be very, very excited about it.”
Harries said he wants to be as approachable and easy to talk to as possible. His main goal is to encourage students’ success and improve new programs and new courses, as well as any new changes in policy regarding graduate education.
“I really enjoy working with students or else I wouldn’t be in this environment,” Harries said. “And certainly, if there are clubs where I can play a role or help whether it’s undergrads or grads I’m certainly very open to any of that. I don’t just want to sit in my office, I do want to engage with students when and where I can.”
