Dean of Libraries and Information Resources Search
Rebecca Bichel named Dean of Libraries and Information Resources at UND
The Dean of Libraries and Information Resources at the University of North Dakota is the chief administrator for the university libraries, chief spokesperson for UND libraries at all levels, and represents UND Libraries to external partners on all local, state, regional, and national initiatives.
The Dean is responsible for providing vision and leadership for UND Libraries in order to advance the mission of the university, increase and support research opportunity and productivity, provide pathways for student success, learning, retention, and achievement, and meet the strategic goals of the university, the NDUS system, and the state of North Dakota.
Rebecca Bichel
After completing a nationwide search, Rebecca Bichel has been appointed by Eric LInk, provost and vice-president for academic affairs as the new Dean of Libraries and Information Resources. Her start date is set for April 17th.
Rebecca Bichel is currently the Dean of Libraries at the University of Texas at Arlington, serving in that role since 2012. She has 25 years’ experience as an academic librarian. Before accepting her role at UTA, Rebecca served as Associate Dean for Public Services at Florida State University Libraries from 2005-2012. She was also a librarian at Pennsylvania State University and Sam Houston State University.
Rebecca has a passion for creating transformative learning and growth experiences for students and colleagues. She works with a deeply engaged team to manage an on-demand collection policies, provide responsive services and spaces, offer programming for one of the most diverse campuses in the country, support an ambitious creation and adoption OER program, create evolving scholarly communication services for faculty, and implement ambitious creative and research data spaces for student success.
Rebecca holds a Master’s in Library and Information Science from the University of Hawaii at Manoa and two bachelor degrees from Valdosta State University. Her research interests are leadership in support of innovation in libraries and the opportunities of library service and space redesign, such as creation of makerspaces.
Thank you to everyone who attended the open forums and provided feedback during this process.