Professor Shennan served as Associate Dean of the College from 1999 to 2004, and from 2004 to 2009 as Dean of the College. In January 2010 he was appointed to the newly created post of Provost. In that capacity, he oversees all the academic programs of the college as well as the college’s libraries and technology services, and budgetary and strategic planning.
Professor Shennan is a graduate of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, where he received a double starred first in history. He also received his Ph.D. from Cambridge University. He held a Harkness Fellowship in the Department of Government at Harvard University and was a research fellow at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge before joining the Wellesley College faculty in 1988.
Professor Shennan’s books include Rethinking France: Plans for Renewal, 1940-1946 (Oxford University Press, 1989); De Gaulle (Longman, 1993); and The Fall of France, 1940 (Longman, 2000). At Wellesley Professor Shennan has taught a range of courses in modern European history, with a particular emphasis on the 20th century, the history of modern France, and World War II. He was a founding director of Wellesley’s International Relations program and the first director of the College’s Summer School. In 1991 he was awarded the College’s Pinanski Prize for Excellence in Teaching. He was a member of the last two presidential search committees, and in the summer of 2007 served briefly as acting president of the College.
