New Deans' Assignments in SAS: Dr. Farrell, Dr. Licht

Dr. Joseph Farrell of Classical Studies will become the new Associate Dean for Graduate Studies in SAS July 1--succeeding Dr. Walter Licht of History, who will continue as an Associate Dean with responsibility for several academic departments, area studies, and SAS centers.

Dr. Farrell will oversee the School's graduate education programs, which take place in 36 graduate groups and enroll a total of 2300 students, said Dean Samuel Preston in announcing the changes. As the inaugural chair of the School's Committee on Distributed Learning, Dr. Farrell will also assume oversight for the School's distributed learning programs.

A member of the University since 1984, Dr. Farrell is the Edmund J. and Louise W. Kahn Endowed Term Professor in the Humanities. He is a scholar of Latin and Greek literature (particularly poetry), Roman culture and society, and comparative literature and cultural studies who received his A.B. from Bowdoin College and earned a Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is the author of Vergil's Georgics and the Traditions of Ancient Epic: The Art of Illusion in Literary History (Oxford, 1991) and of Latin Language and Latin Culture, forthcoming from Cambridge. He has chaired the undergraduate program in Comparative Literature since 1991 and was director of the Post-Baccalaureate Program in Classical Studies from 1991 to 1993. Dean Preston noted that he is "especially well-known for his innovative use of technology in his teaching and research. His on-line, interactive Vergil Project, currently supported by an NEH Teaching with Technology Grant, is a highly regarded resource for scholars and laymen alike."

Dr. Licht, who has, in the Dean's words, "done a yeoman's job at performing essentially two jobs during the past year," will turn his full attention to his role as a "divisional" dean. He will continue his oversight of the Departments of Anthropology, Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, History, Sociology, and South Asia Regional Studies, and will also assume responsibility for Political Science. He will also retain responsibility for the 21 centers in the School, and will continue to oversee and develop area studies initiatives.

Dr. Licht joined the SAS faculty in 1977 after receiving a B.A. from Harvard, an M.A. in Sociology from the University of Chicago, and an M.A. and Ph.D. in History from Princeton. He is a renowned scholar of American economic and labor history whose most recent book is Industrializing America: The Nineteenth Century (Johns Hopkins, 1995). He won the School's Ira Abrams Memorial Award for Distinguished Teaching in 1984. He has served in the Dean's office since 1995, and was earlier undergraduate and graduate chair in History.


Almanac, Vol. 45, No. 33, May 18/25, 1999

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