FAS Announces New Dean

Building onto its extensive network of deans, the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) announced on March 24 that Linda Snyder will oversee the similarly extensive network of FAS land holdings as the associate executive dean of physical resources and planning.

The newly created position, which reports directly to Executive Dean Nancy L. Maull, comes in the midst of continuing construction in the North Yard and the University’s plans for a new campus in Allston centered around FAS science facilities.

Snyder, who will assume the post in May, will oversee the conceptualization and completion of construction plans for FAS, a role that includes managerial, architectural, and financial responsibilities.

“I bring experience in the best development practice for buildings in higher ed...I will help efficiently plan, design and build the high quality building projects that our faculty and students expect,” Snyder wrote in an e-mail.

In the next few years, she hopes to focus on responding to building and housing needs generated by the curricular review and Dean Kirby’s plan to grow the Faculty, Snyder wrote.

FAS currently owns 8.5 million square feet of building space, which Snyder described as “a complex management challenge.”

It is a challenge that FAS administrators hope Snyder’s addition will help solve.

“I think one of the attractions for Harvard was that she understands cost effective operations and management,” said Tamara P. Davis, chairman of the Massachusetts State College Building Authority (MSCBA), where Snyder currently works.

In her position as Executive Director at the MSCBA, Snyder has filled a similar role, working to design and construct student life facilities for the state’s public colleges.

“What she has done...at the building authority is going to be an excellent experience base for her in terms of doing what needs to be done at Harvard,” Davis said.

Snyder also served as a city planner in Anchorage, Alaska and as a project director for the waterfront expansion of the Boston Children’s Museums.

Drawing on past experiences, Snyder wrote that she hopes “to provide management strength to the team in a time of very complex project construction” and “to support deans Kirby and Maull.”

Snyder said she will not be working in Allston.

Former colleague Davis said that Snyder is “great to work with.”

“She is totally committed to public service and to providing what the customer wants, which in Harvard’s case is the students and the faculty,” she said.

Snyder is familiar with Harvard: she studied at the Design School as a John L. Loeb scholar in 1996 and 1997 and is the parent of a Harvard alum.

-—Staff writer Natalie L. Sherman can be reached at nsherman@fas.harvard.edu.