OFFICIAL ANNOUNCEMENT:
Dear Faculty, Staff and Students,
I am pleased to announce that Professor Ralph Keen will become Interim Dean of the Honors College, effective August 16, 2015, subject to approval by the University of Illinois Board of Trustees. Dr. Keen is currently Professor in the Department of History and he has held the prestigious title of Arthur J. Schmitt Chair of Catholic Studies since arriving at UIC in 2010. This appointment follows the decision of the current dean, Professor Bette L. Bottoms, to return to the faculty after an illustrious six years as dean and one year as interim dean. A search for a permanent dean will commence this coming academic year.
The Honors College is a national model for honors education in urban public research universities. Professor Keen has been involved with the college since his arrival at UIC, as a fellow and as a member of the Honors Council, of which he was co-chair in 2014-15. As a member of the college strategic planning committee (2011-12) and diversity committee (2013-14), and as co-chair of the 2013-14 fifth-year review of the dean, Professor Keen became familiar with every aspect of the college’s operations.
Prior to UIC, Professor Keen was Assistant and then Associate Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Iowa, where he was also involved in the University Honors Program. A renowned historian of early-modern religious thought, Professor Keen served as executive officer of UIC’s Religious Studies program in 2014-15. He is the author of two monographs and a textbook as well as editor or translator of five other books, and he is currently completing a monograph on the uses of the idea of divine wrath in religious polemics from Martin Luther to Jonathan Edwards. He is an editor of the monograph series Catholic Christendom 1300-1700 published in the UK by Ashgate, and serves on the boards of the American Catholic Historical Association and the Society for Reformation Research as well as the finance committee (of which he was the founding chair) of the American Society of Church History.
Please join me in welcoming Professor Keen to his new role on campus.
Sincerely,
Eric A. Gislason Interim Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs and Provost
