President Merrill J. Bateman, who assumed responsibilities as BYU president on Jan. 1, has appointed Alan L. Wilkins to be the university’s new academic vice president.
Wilkins replaces Todd A. Britsch, who will serve as a presidential consultant through winter semester 1996 before returning to full-time teaching and research in the Department of Humanities, Classics, and Comparative Literature.
James D. Gordon, a member of the BYU law faculty, will replace Wilkins as an associate academic vice president for faculty relations.
After completing BA and MBA degrees from BYU in 1972 and 1974, Wilkinswent on to obtain a PhD from Stanford University in 1979, where he was a research assistant in the Stanford Graduate School of Business. He joined the BYU organizational behavior faculty in the Marriott School of Management in 1978, and he was chair of the Department of Organizational Behavior prior to his appointment in 1994 as an associate academic vice president.
His research on corporate and organizational myths has received national media attention from such publications as Dun’s Review (Dun and Bradstreet), the Wall Street Journal, and Fortune Magazine.
Gordon, a popular teacher and scholar at the J. Reuben Clark Law School, received a BA from BYU in 1977 and a JD in 1980 from the Boalt Hall School of Law at the University of California, Berkeley. His respectful but often humorous perspective on the practice of law has made him a much sought-after speaker and author on legal education, law school life, and the status of lawyers in society.
His publications include a book, Law School: A Survivor’s Guide, as well as scholarly papers in the Yale Law Journal, Vanderbilt Law Review, Texas Law Review, California Law Review, Michigan Law Review, Arizona Law Review, and Cornell Law Review.
During the past decade, Britsch has served as dean of the College of Humanities, associate academic vice president, and academic vice president. He is a well-respected teacher and scholar who has lectured and published widely.