Jim Ralph ’82 was appointed the Dean of the Faculty in July 2010.  Previously, he held the position of the Dean for Faculty Development and Research to which he was appointed in May 2008. Since joining the Middlebury faculty in 1989, Jim has been active in faculty governance. He has served multiple terms on Faculty Council, including three stints as the council’s Secretary, and two years on the Promotions Committee. In 2006, he was appointed as William H. Rehnquist Professor of American History and Culture. He has received grant support from numerous sources, including a Fulbright fellowship. His research focuses on the civil rights movement, and includes numerous conference papers, articles, and a book, Northern Protest: Martin Luther King, Jr., Chicago, and the Civil Rights Movement (Harvard, 1993).