Dr. Rena Fraden was appointed on July 1, 2006 as Dean of the Faculty and Vice President for Academic Affairs and G. Keith Funston Professor of English and American Studies at Trinity College.  Reporting to the President, she is the chief academic officer and the second ranking officer of the College.

Fraden graduated summa cum laude from Yale University and also received her Ph.D. in English from Yale.  She joined Pomona College as assistant professor of English in 1983.  During her 23 years at Pomona, she served as Associate Dean (2003 to 2006) and as the chair of the English department (1999 to 2003), and she was a member of numerous faculty and administrative committees, including curriculum, faculty personnel, diversity, and affirmative action committees.

In addition to receiving a Fulbright Fellowship in India and being a Fellow at the Center for the Humanities at Wesleyan University, Fraden has received prestigious grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities. She is the author of Imagining Medea: Rhodessa Jones and Theater for Incarcerated Women and Blueprints for a Black Federal Theater and is currently working on a book about the Pulitzer prize winner, Suzan-Lori Parks.

Click here for Dean Fraden's annual address to the Faculty, September 11, 2007.