UW-Waukesha Names Interim Associate Dean

Dean/CEO Harry Muir has named Margaret Cleek to serve as interim associate dean. She is expected to begin Monday, Feb.13.

served as UW-Waukesha’s associate dean from 1995 until his unexpected passing last month at age 65. He was the successor to Cleek, who served as associate dean at the university from 1990 to 1995.

“UW-Waukesha has been fortunate for a second time to call Dr. Margaret Cleek into service as its associate dean,” Muir said.  “She knows the campus well.  Having also served as provost and acting chancellor of UW Colleges prior to her retirement, Dr. Cleek brings central office administrative experience that will be invaluable as UW-Waukesha begins the process of developing its Bachelor of Applied Arts and Sciences (B.A.A.S.) degree program partnership with UW-Parkside during the 2012 spring semester. I feel very fortunate that Dr. Cleek accepted my invitation to serve our community one more time, while we search for a permanent replacement who will hopefully be selected and on board by July 1.”

Cleek was the provost and vice chancellor for academic affairs at the University of Wisconsin Colleges from 2001 to 2007.  Prior to that position, she was the associate vice chancellor for academic affairs at the Colleges for five years and interim provost for one year. She also was interim chancellor for the UW Colleges for sixteen months.

Her first administrative appointment was as associate dean at UW-Waukesha. As the chief academic officer for the institution, she was responsible for curricular development and oversight, academic policy development and implementation, faculty and teaching academic staff hiring and evaluation, academic and continuing education program budgets, accreditation, and academic department activities. She had oversight of distance education, grants and professional development, office of the registrar, student affairs, institutional research, continuing education, study abroad, assessment and libraries.

Cleek served as a consultant-evaluator for the Higher Learning Commission of the North Central Association from 1993 to 2004 and on the Accreditation Review Committee of that same organization.   

As a tenured member of the psychology department at the UW Colleges, she taught primarily in her specialty areas of developmental psychology and statistics. Clerk spent the 1985-86 academic year teaching in Malaysia for Indiana University. She has published in the areas of divorce and learning.

Cleek received her bachelor’s degree from the University of Illinois-Chicago and her master’s and doctorate in psychology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Editor’s Note: The above information was provided to Waukesha Patch via a news release from UW-Waukesha.