University Counsel Clayton Marsh ’85 will serve as Deputy Dean of the College beginning July 1, the University announced Wednesday. Marsh will join Woodrow Wilson Professor of Literature Valerie Smith — a member of the English department and the Program in African American Studies and the next Dean of the College — as members of a new team that will lead West College starting in the coming academic year.
“Dean Smith offered me the position last Thursday, which I was thrilled to receive — and to accept,” Marsh said in an email.
Marsh will replace outgoing Deputy Dean of the College Peter Quimby, who has resigned to become headmaster of the Governor’s Academy in Massachusetts. The University announced Dec. 14 that Smith would replace Dean of the College Nancy Malkiel, who had announced her plans to retire from the post at the start of the school year after 24 years in the position.
Marsh said he initially applied for the position in early March. Before being offered the position last week, he went through a “lengthy search process that involved interviews with more than two dozen faculty and administrators,” he said.
“I served on the search committee and was involved in the selection process,” Smith said in an email. “I’m thrilled with the outcome.”
Marsh, who concentrated in English while at the University, received a master’s degree in English from Stanford, a Ph.D. in English and comparative literature from Columbia and a J.D. from the University of Michigan. Before joining the University’s staff, Marsh represented Microsoft and Time Warner in lawsuits and mergers for firms such as Sullivan & Cromwell and Cravath, Swaine & Moore.
Before that, he was an English teacher at the nearby Lawrenceville School, where he coached the football and wrestling teams and worked as a housemaster.
Marsh joined the University’s Office of the General Counsel as an attorney in 2002. Since joining the University, Marsh has focused on cases regarding sponsored research and intellectual property. Most recently, he helped the University win a trial case to defend its patent on a cancer treatment product. He has also taught a freshman seminar on self-invention and imposture in American literature and an upper-level American Studies course on trials in American literature.
Smith said she had consulted with Marsh on an intellectual property case when she served as the director of the Center for African American Studies. “I found him to be extremely knowledgeable, gracious and skilled at tackling complex issues,” she said.
Marsh also described his relationship with Smith as “wonderful.”
“Val and I have worked closely together on other matters, and I am just thilled to be joining her in West College as Deputy Dean,” Marsh explained.
Marsh said he is confident that his experiences, both as counsel and as a teacher for the University, will serve him well in the deanship, but he acknowledged that he still needs more preparation. “There is of course much for me to do and learn in preparation for the many opportunities and challenges that this position holds,” he said. “I’m ready to dig in.”
As the new deputy dean, Marsh will take over many of Quimby’s old responsibilities. He will serve as the secretary to the Faculty Commission on the Course of Study and a member of the Council on Science and Technology. In this capacity, he will oversee development of new courses and work with departments to find funding for curricular innovation.
Marsh will also have many responsibilities involving more direct interaction with University students. He will be in charge of the Freshman Seminar Program and will also supervise the Princeton Writing Program, the Program in Teacher Preparation, the McGraw Center for Teaching and Learning and the Community-Based Learning Initiative.
Marsh said he is particularly excited to work on curricular innovation with the University’s departments and programs but added that he will need to spend “a great deal of time just listening and learning more about the academic needs of our undergraduates and the many curricular initiatives that Dean Malkiel and her colleagues in West College have so ably pursued over the years.”
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