Two new department heads approved by trustees
Oct. 29, 2001
KALAMAZOO -- The Western Michigan University Board of Trustees approved the appointments of Said AbuBakr, professor and chairperson of the Department of Paper and Printing Science and Engineering; and Xiaojun Wang, associate professor and chairperson of the Department of Asian and Middle Eastern Languages.
Said AbuBakr comes to WMU from the U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service's Forest Products Laboratory in Madison, Wis., where he had served as research project leader and supervisory chemical engineer since 1993. He also has held faculty positions at the University of Wisconsin at Stevens Point, Yarmouk University in Jordan and Michigan State University.
AbuBakr earned a bachelor's degree from the Petroleum and Petrochemical Institute of Moscow and master's and doctoral degrees in chemical engineering from Michigan State University in 1981 and 1982, respectively. He replaces Dr. Thomas Joyce, who has returned to the faculty.
Xiaojun Wang has been serving as interim chairperson of his department since 1999 and is a Chinese language specialist. He came to WMU in 1997 from the University of Arizona, where he had been since 1990 and served as coordinator of the Basic Chinese Program. Prior to that he was an instructor at the Beijing Language Institute. He also served for a year as a visiting scholar at Richmond College in London.
Wang earned bachelor's and master's degrees from Northeast Normal University in China and master's and doctoral degrees from the University of Arizona in 1989 and 1995, respectively.
In other personnel action, the board approved the return to the faculty of Dr. Leonard Beuving, chairperson of the Department of Biological Sciences, effective Aug. 6; tenure appointments for AbuBakr and Dr. William Sauck, associate professor of geosciences, effective Aug. 6; and a professional development leave for Dr. Susan Carlson, associate professor of sociology, effective Dec. 10, 2001 through April 14, 2002.
Media contact: Cheryl Roland, 616 387-8400, cheryl.roland@wmich.edu