Getty Grant director to join pres. search

The University announced yesterday that Deborah Marrow, an alumni trustee and director of the Getty Grant Program in Los Angeles, has agreed to fill the vacant trustee slot on the presidential search committee.

"Dr. Marrow's broad knowledge of the field of higher education will be very valuable to the work of our committee," said the committee's chairman, Chairman of the Board of Trustees James Riepe, in a press release. "We appreciate her willingness to take on this important responsibility on short notice."

Marrow went on from the College of Women and Penn's graduate program to teach and write about art history before joining Getty, where she has served as publications coordinator, program officer and assistant director of the Grant Program as well as interim director of the Getty Research Institute.

She is also a member of the Board of Governors of the University of California Humanities Research Institute and a member of the United States National Committee for the History of Art.

According to an e-mail from California Humanities Research Institute Director David Theo Goldberg, Marrow "is terrific: supportive, smart, insightful, level-headed, reasonable but also willing and able to make tough decisions."

At Penn, she recently headed up the committee charged with selecting commemorative sculpture for the celebration of 125 years of women at the University.

"We're very grateful she's going to step in at this point," University spokeswoman Phyllis Holtzman said. "She's going to be terrific."

As the search committee's membership is determined by University statute, the committee had been short one trustee since the death of Vice Chairwoman of the Board of Trustees Natalie Koether on Oct. 3.

Koether, 63, died of heart failure and was "obviously very weak," according to Riepe, when she attended the first meeting of the search committee before being hospitalized on Sept. 24.

Please note All comments are eligible for publication in The Daily Pennsylvanian.