I am pleased to announce that following a nationwide search Professor Jean-Xavier Guinard has been appointed the new Associate Vice Provost and Executive Director for the UC Education Abroad Program, effective October 1, 2010.

Jean-Xavier Guinard

As Associate Vice Provost and Executive Director, Professor Guinard will manage the systemwide study abroad program of the University of California based in Goleta, California, with responsibility for all UCEAP programming, operations, faculty, and staff in Goleta and overseas.

Professor Guinard comes to UCEAP from UC Davis, where he has served for the past three years as Associate Vice Provost for International Programs at UC Davis and since 1994 as a Professor of Sensory Science in the Department of Food Science and Technology. He brings an understanding of and a profound commitment to education abroad at both systemwide and campus levels, as well as demonstrated programmatic and administrative leadership.

During his tenure at UC Davis, Professor Guinard served as the UC Davis representative on the University Committee on International Education (UCIE) and as interim Director of the UCD Quarter Abroad Program. He was a member of the joint UOIP and Academic Senate Task Force on Internationalizing the Curriculum, and co-chaired the joint UOEAP and Academic Senate Task Force on EAP Study Centers. In 2005 and 2006, he served as Study Center Director of the University of California's Education Abroad Program in Madrid, Spain.

Professor Guinard graduated from Ecole Nationale Supérieure d'Agronomie et des Industries Alimentaires, Nancy, France and holds degrees from the School of Law and Economics, University of Nancy, France and University of Paris VI, Paris, France. He holds an M.Sc. in Food Science/Enology and a Ph.D in Microbiology from UC Davis. Professor Guinard's research and teaching focuses on sensory and consumer science.

I want to thank Professor Michael Cowan for his extraordinary service at UCEAP during his two-year tenure as UCEAP executive director and for his willingness to extend his appointment for a few months until his successor was announced. He leaves UCEAP a robust organization with quality programming. The Program and the University have been well served by his efforts.

Sincerely,

Lawrence H. Pitts
Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs