Jeffrey Wolcowitz is Dean of Undergraduate Studies and Adjunct Professor of Economics at Case Western Reserve University (CWRU). Dean Wolcowitz joined Case Western Reserve as Dean in 2006.
Dean Wolcowitz heads the Office of Undergraduate Studies and provides leadership, management, and oversight of academic affairs for all undergraduates at Case Western Reserve. In this role, he is a Provost's designee to the Faculty Senate Committee on Undergraduate Education, co-chairing the subcommittees on curriculum and academic standing, and participates on the curriculum committees of the constituent faculties of the Undergraduate Program Faculty. He also is a member of the President's Council, the Academic Affairs Council, and the Deans' Advisory Group on Recruitment, and served on the Provost’s Commission on the Undergraduate Experience.
Since coming to Case Western Reserve, Dean Wolcowitz has provided leadership to efforts to update policies and procedures for students and faculty with an emphasis on simplicity, clarity, and consistency among the schools, while providing better guidance to students in their academic work. In the Department of Economics, Dean Wolcowitz has taught intermediate microeconomics and principles of microeconomics. His paper “Linking the Substitution and Output Effects of Production to Profit-Maximization in the Intermediate Microeconomics Course” was published in Business Education & Accreditation. Dean Wolcowitz serves as advisor to the CWRU chapter of the Delta Chi fraternity for which he was named the Alumnus Advisor of the Year for 2017 by the international organization. In 2016, the CWRU Greek Life Outstanding Advisor award was renamed in his honor.
Before coming to Case Western Reserve, Dean Wolcowitz held faculty and administrative positions at Harvard University for 28 years. As an economist, he served as one of the course heads from 1978 to 1983 for the full-year introductory economics course, which enrolled about 1,000 students per year, and later taught undergraduate courses on public finance, microeconomic theory, the future of social security (freshman seminar), and the economist's view of the world (freshman seminar). As Allston Burr Senior Tutor (resident dean) in Dunster House from 1983 to 1990, he was responsible for supporting and fostering the academic progress and personal welfare of the approximately 325 sophomores, juniors, and seniors who lived in the House. Between 1988 and 2005, Dean Wolcowitz served as Assistant and Associate Dean for Undergraduate Education, and as Associate Dean of Harvard College and Chief Planning Officer. In these roles, he worked to strengthen the educational experience of undergraduates, expanding and consolidating oversight of the curriculum and building an office with responsibility for curricular planning, pedagogical improvement and course development, academic advising, and resource planning.
Dean Wolcowitz earned his AB from Princeton University in 1974, his AM from Harvard University in 1976, and his PhD from Harvard University in 1982, all in economics.