James E. Swartz
Grinnell College, Grinnell, Iowa
Dean of the College and Vice President for Academic Affairs
Professor of Chemistry

Director of the 1995-1997 Noyce Science Center Renovation and Expansion Project

Jim Swartz attended DeAnza College and graduated from Stanislaus State College in California. He received a Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of California at Santa Cruz, having worked with Joe Bunnett. After two years post-doctoral work at Cal Tech with Fred Anson, he joined the faculty at Grinnell College; he holds the faculty position of Professor of Chemistry. He has regularly taught Organic Chemistry and Solar Energy Technologies, occasionally taught Introductory Chemistry, and has taught two First Year Tutorials. His research on the mechanisms of reactions of radicals and radical anions has been supported by NSF, The Petroleum Research Fund, and Research Corporation. From August through December of 1989 Swartz served as a Legislative Aide in the Washington, D.C. office of Representative Claudine Schneider of Rhode Island. In January 1998, Dr. Swartz was named Dean of the College and Vice President for Academic Affairs at Grinnell College.

As Chair of the Grinnell College Science Division from 1990 to 1994 he worked to develop a division-wide effort to improve introductory courses, which gave rise in 1994 to the New Science Project, a successful Grinnell program supported by the Lilly Endowment and the National Science Foundation which encourages the participation and success in the study of science by students who are members of groups traditionally under-represented in the sciences. He also worked to substantially increase the number of participants involved in student-faculty research which occurs both during the academic year and during the summer, when approximately sixty students work with Grinnell faculty in all science departments for a 10-week period.

Swartz is a current member of the Board of the American Council of Academic Deans, a councilor for the Council on Undergraduate Research, a member of the Iowa Energy Center Advisory Council, and is a Consultant-Evaluator for the Commission on Institutions of Higher Education for the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools.

Over the past several years, Swartz has served as a consultant to over twenty colleges and universities in the planning of science facilities and curriculum development, and has been a coordinator and presenter at several Project Kaleidoscope Facilities Workshops. He has co-authored a book on planning undergraduate science facilities. He directed the $15.3 million renovation and expansion of science facilities, dedicated on September 27, 1997 as the Robert N. Noyce '49 Science Center, as well as the earlier renovation of chemistry research areas, completed in May 1993.