Tom Apple, vice provost and dean of Graduate Education, will be leaving RPI to return to the University of Delaware, his alma mater, as the Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. He will begin his position at Delaware on July 1.
Apple earned his Ph.D. in physical chemistry from the University of Delaware in 1982. He has been a faculty member at RPI since 1991 after he worked at the University of Nebraska from 1983 to 1991.
At the University of Delaware, Apple will be in charge of the largest school which makes up about half of the university. He will be responsible for 600 out of 1,100 tenured track faculty as well as about 9,000 out of the 20,000 or so undergraduate students.
Apple said that he is proud to be at RPI, but Delaware was just too big of an opportunity to pass up. He said that his years at RPI have been among the most rewarding.