James W. Harrington Jr., a geography professor at the University of Washington Seattle and the immediate past chairman of the UW Faculty Senate, will become UW Tacoma’s next vice chancellor for academic affairs.
Harrington will start his new job on Sept. 1.
Since 1997, Harrington has been a professor of geography at UW, where he served as department chair from 2000-05. During 2006-09 he served as the faculty legislative representative from the university to state legislative and executive deliberations on higher education policy and budgets. In 2009-11, he served as vice chairman and chairman of the university’s Faculty Senate, which has key advisory roles on curriculum, degree requirements, faculty affairs and review, and budget planning. As chairman, he was an ex officio member of the Board of Regents and a member of the Advisory Search Committee for the university’s president.
Earlier, he served as director of the National Science Foundation’s Geography and Regional Science Program (1994-97); Associate Professor of Public Policy at George Mason University (1991-97); and Assistant and Associate Professor of Geography at SUNY-Buffalo. (1983-91). He holds Ph.D. and M.A. degrees from the University of Washington, and an A.B. degree from Harvard University.
Harrington’s research and teaching interests include economic geography, specifically subnational, regional economic development, occupational attainment, international trade. His work focuses on the U.S., Canada and China.
The principal responsibilities of the vice chancellor are to provide support for the academic dean and directors, and ensure integrity of the promotion and tenure processes. Harrington has served as chairman of the geography department and has long been involved in faculty development both at UW Seattle and nationally in the field of geography. He has broad knowledge of the UW as a result of his faculty senate leadership activities and through his service on the UW presidential search committee.
He will have a faculty appointment in both Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences and Urban Studies at UW Tacoma. You can learn more about him on his faculty Web site at http://faculty.washington.edu/jwh/ .
