Boston University named its first female dean of the College of Arts and Sciences on Wednesday, ending a search that began almost a year ago to replace Jeffrey Henderson, who has headed BU’s largest school since July 2002.

The new dean, Virginia Sapiro, had been the vice provost for teaching and learning at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and is the first woman to serve as CAS dean in the college’s 134-year history. She will begin her tenure July 1.

“A lot of us who are the first think that the best thing is that no one will ever have to do this again,” Sapiro said. “It will be normal some day.”

Philosophy department chairman Charles Griswold, who led the search committee, said Sapiro was the “unanimous choice” of the committee, in part because of her experience at another large university – BU is the fourth-largest private university in the country, and Wisconsin-Madison is the 11th-largest school in the country.

“The new dean will represent the interests of the college very effectively, and that was a very important criterion for me and for the committee,” Griswold said.

Sapiro joined the Wisconsin-Madison faculty in 1976 and has chaired its political science department and women’s studies program. As CAS dean, Sapiro said she will put much of her effort into fundraising to improve the college.

Henderson, who will return to teaching in the classics department, has said the college needs more space to accommodate a growing number of students.

“In a modern university like BU . . . an important part of the dean’s job is to be able to help raise the funds that can support the quality of education that we have in the future,” Sapiro said.

The 11-member search committee, which Provost David Campbell organized in October 2006, was comprised of undergraduates, graduate students and faculty from CAS and its graduate school, as well as faculty from the College of General Studies, the College of Engineering and the School of Management.

“I think that she will bring the faculty and administration together in an ever more productive working relationship and will improve the quality of the education that we deliver to both graduate and undergraduate students,” Griswold said.

The committee selected Sapiro as its recommendation out of approximately 350 candidates.

“Over the years, people across the country have seen how BU has become better and better as a place to go to school and to do research,” Sapiro said. “I am very excited about joining a university that is doing such wonderful things on a great trajectory.”

In 1995, Sapiro was awarded as the Sophonisba P. Breckinridge Professor, an honor named after the social worker, educator and social activist of the early 1900s who was the first woman to earn a Ph.D. in political science and law degree from the University of Chicago.

Sapiro, who grew up not far from New York City, received a bachelor’s degree in government from Clark University in Worcester.

“I spent quite a lot of time in Boston while doing my senior thesis, so this is not my first experience with Boston,” she said. “I am very excited to be back in New England, the region I love, and Boston, which is one of my favorite cities in the world.”

Sapiro received a doctorate in political science from the University of Michigan, where she was a researcher at the Institute for Social Research.

In her research and publications, she has focused on women’s roles in American political development.