Letter to the Community: Announcing Teresa Garrett as Dean of the College at Sweet Briar

Posted on May 22, 2019 by Meredith Woo

May 22, 2019

Dear Colleagues:

I am most pleased to share with you that Teresa Garrett will begin on Aug. 1 as vice president of academic affairs and dean of the College. She comes to us from Vassar College, ranked number 11 among national liberal arts colleges, where she began as an assistant professor of chemistry in 2007. She received tenure in 2013 and was promoted to full professor in 2017, before most recently serving as associate dean.

Throughout her career Teresa has earned outstanding accolades as a teacher, researcher and leader. Her experiences at Vassar, including helping shepherd a rebalancing of the curriculum throughout a two-year planning and implementation process, have uniquely equipped her to lead Sweet Briar’s academic innovation to the next level.

She graduated summa cum laude and with honors in biochemistry from Florida State University and earned a Ph.D. in biochemistry at Duke University. She has published or co-published three dozen journal articles and is responsible for more than $2.5 million in grant-funded research. She also has served as a reviewer for the National Science Foundation and for numerous academic journals.

I want to express my gratitude again for your input on the search, particularly to the search committee and Linda Fink as chair. Based on feedback given to me by faculty, staff and students, I am confident that Teresa Garrett is the right choice for Sweet Briar College. As we always do, please welcome her and her family when they move to campus this summer.

Meredith Woo
President