Gallery of Chancellors, Deans

This gallery features three marble plaques listing, from left to right, the chancellors (from 1220 to 1792/94; the chancellor was the head of the medical university), the deans (from 1220 to 1792/94; the dean was, strictly speaking, the most senior professor, responsible for setting the curriculum), and the directors, deans, and female deans in the modern administrative sense of the term (from 1794 to the present; the chancellor took the title of director during the Revolution, then dean when the Imperial University was founded in 1808, but the dean is no longer necessarily the most senior professor…).

These three plaques are useful for understanding the institution’s demographics and the history of higher education.

They provide demographic data on the faculty and the school's leadership.

According to the plaque on the left, the first chancellor (the equivalent of today’s dean) was English, and of the first four chancellors, two were English and one was from Paris. At least one chancellor was Jewish in the 13th and 14th centuries.

All the chancellors and senior professors (the plaques on the left and in the middle) were men, as women were not admitted to higher education until the late 19th century.

The plaque on the right reveals that the first female dean in the modern sense of the term, Isabelle Laffont, was elected shortly after the institution’s 800th anniversary in 2021.