PHILADELPHIA - Samuel H. Preston, Dean of the School of Arts and Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania, has named leading criminologist Lawrence W. Sherman as the new Director of the Fels Center of Government. Sherman will also be appointed the Albert M. Greenfield Professor of Human Relations in the Department of Sociology. The Fels Center, which will now become part of the School of Arts and Sciences, was previously associated with Penn's Graduate School of Fine Arts.

Professor Sherman is currently Distinguished University Professor at the University of Maryland and chair of the Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice. He graduated from Denison University, received a Master's Degree in Social Science from the University of Chicago, a Diploma in Criminology from Cambridge University and completed his Ph.D. in Sociology at Yale in 1976. Sherman has had a long career in city government and police administration. He began his career as an Alfred P. Sloan Urban Fellow in the office of New York Mayor John Lindsay in 1970. He has also served Mayors Stephen Goldsmith of Indianapolis and Donald Fraser of Minneapolis. He frequently testifies before the U.S. Congress and state legislatures on crime prevention policy. He is currently advising Philadelphia Police Commissioner John Timoney. Sherman has written four books and hundreds of scholarly articles and received awards for distinguished scholarship from the American Sociological Association, the American Society of Criminology, and the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences.

The Albert M. Greenfield professorship, established in 1972 with a gift from the Albert M. Greenfield Foundation, is designated for a distinguished scholar in the field of human relations. The foundation supports activities that carry on the humanitarian vision of the late Albert M. Greenfield, the former chairman of the board of Bankers Securities Corporation and chairman of the Philadelphia Planning Commission.

The Fels Center, one of the oldest public management programs in the nation, prepares students for leadership careers in public service and confers a Master of Governmental Administration degree. It was founded in 1937 by the late Samuel S. Fels, a Philadelphia philanthropist, and is located on the Penn campus in the mansion that had once been his home.