U.VA. HISTORY PROFESSOR MELVYN LEFFLER
 IS NAMED DEAN OF ARTS AND SCIENCES

	CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va., May 21 -- University of Virginia history
professor Melvyn P. Leffler, one of the country's leading authorities
on modern U.S. foreign-relations, has been named dean of the
University's College and Graduate School of Arts and Sciences,
President John T. Casteen III announced today.
	Leffler succeeds Raymond J. Nelson, who announced last year
that he would return to full time teaching and research in the English
department Sept. 1 after serving eight years as the chief
administrator of the liberal arts core of the University.  With some
25 academic departments and a like number of centers and
interdisciplinary programs, and with more than 11,000 of U.Va.'s
18,000 undergraduate and graduate students, Arts and Sciences is the
largest of U.Va.'s 10 degree-granting schools.
	"Mel Leffler brings outstanding qualities as a scholar,
administrator and teacher and he has a clear vision of the role and
challenges facing Arts and Sciences and the University," Casteen said.
"He is a wonderful choice to carry on Ray Nelson's capable
leadership."
	"His devotion to his students, to excellence and to the
University are well known," said Vice President and Provost Peter W.
Low.  "We are fortunate to have someone of his caliber and judgment."
	Leffler, who holds the Edward R. Stettinius Professorship in
History, joined the University faculty in 1986 and chaired the history
department from 1990 to 1995.  He previously taught for 14 years at
Vanderbilt University.
	In 1993 Leffler won the Bancroft Prize, regarded as the
premier award in American history, for his widely acclaimed book "A
Preponderance of Power: National Security, the Truman Administration
and the Cold War" (Stanford). The book, which shed new light on the
origins of the Cold War, also received other top U.S. and
international history honors.
	He takes the leadership of Arts and Sciences as the University
is in the midst of its $750 million Capital Campaign, one of the
largest fund-raising efforts by a U.S. public university.
	Leffler said that among his key priorities would be
"recruiting and retaining the most talented faculty members in the
country; improving the quality of our graduate programs with more
funding for graduate teaching assistantships, fellowships and
dissertation research; and enhancing the intellectual life of our
undergraduate students and encouraging them to take ideas seriously."
Particularly to enrich undergraduate education, Leffler said he hoped
to enlarge interdisciplinary offerings and expand international
programs.
	"I want to build on the excellence that exists," he said.
"It's a tremendous privilege to be dean of the best public college in
the United States. It's also a formidable challenge." He added that he
would focus on maintaining the highest quality in all areas of Arts
and Sciences, including science, humanities and social science
programs.
	"I'm also very committed to continuing the promotion of
diversity at U.Va.," he said.  "Diversity is essential for cultivating
an intellectually exciting campus.  I hope we'll be able to recruit
more women and minorities to our faculty.  One of the great strengths
of U.Va. during the last 15 or 20 years has been the diversification
of its student body and faculty."
	And "a key preoccupation of any dean is to raise funds," he
said. "We're regrettably falling behind our peer institutions in terms
of faculty salaries. One of my top goals will be to help fulfill the
University's commitment to improve faculty salaries."
	Leffler, who served as president of the Society of Historians
of American Foreign Relations in 1994, is also the author of "The
Specter of Communism:  The United States and the Origins of the Cold
War, 1917-1953" (Hill & Wang, 1994) and "The Elusive Quest: America's
Pursuit of European Stability and French Security, 1919-1933" (North
Carolina). His current research focuses on the American responses to
authoritarian and totalitarian governments in the 20th century.  He is
also currently writing a book on why the Cold War lasted as long as it
did and is serving on Department of State and Department of Defense
advisory committees dealing with declassification of national security
documents.
	A fellow of the Council on Foreign Relations during the Carter
years, he served in the office of the Secretary of Defense and worked
on arms control, confidence-building measures and contingency
planning. In 1990, he was a member of a U.S. delegation to a joint
Soviet-American symposium on the Cold War in Moscow and Washington.
And in 1993 he was a senior fellow at the Nobel Peace Institute in
Oslo and lectured there on the Cold War. He had been invited to spend
the Spring semester of next year at the Nobel institute but will forgo
that appointment.
	A graduate of Cornell University, Leffler received his Ph.D.
from Ohio State in 1972. He is married to Phyllis K. Leffler, a
historian and director of U.Va.'s Institute for Public History.
###
May 21, 1997
	Melvyn Leffler may be reached at the U.Va. history department
at (804) 924-7146.  He will be away from May 23-June 9.  For
assistance in arranging interviews contact Bob Brickhouse at U.Va.
News Services at (804) 924-6856.  Television reporters should call our
TV News Office at (804) 924-7550.