Peter Crane to step down as dean of F&ES

Peter Crane, the Carl W. Knobloch Jr. Dean of the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Sciences (F&ES), will step down from that post on June 30, 2016, President Peter Salovey announced in an email to the F&ES community.

Crane will become the inaugural president of the Oak Spring Garden Foundation, an estate of Rachel Lambert Mellon in Virginia that includes extensive gardens and a library of landscape history and plant science.

“Since his arrival at Yale in the fall of 2009, Peter has brought tremendous leadership to the School of Forestry & Environmental Studies, and to the university community more broadly,” said Salovey in his announcement. “He has strengthened F&ES for the century ahead by emphasizing faculty excellence and recruiting eminent scholars to Yale; worked to set the school on solid financial footing in the wake of the economic downturn; led the modernization and strategic renewal of facilities to support the school’s academic mission; fostered interdisciplinary and inter-school collaboration; and positioned F&ES as an exemplar of diversity, global perspective, and civic engagement.”

In a separate message to the F&ES community, Crane said: “It’s hard to express what an exhilarating privilege it has been for me to be part of this great university and the best professional school of the environment anywhere in the world. It will be an enormous wrench to leave behind the wonderful F&ES community with its outstanding staff and faculty, inspiring students, incomparable alumni and dedicated supporters.”

Noting that the mission of the Oak Spring Garden Foundation will be “to facilitate scholarship and public dialogue on the uses, history, and future of plants,” Crane added, “I look forward to continuing my relationship with the School of Forestry & Environmental Studies, and with Yale, in my new role.”

There will be a nationwide search for Crane’s successor.