Announcement: FAS Dean of Humanities

[Summary: This message announces that Kathryn Lofton will return to full-time teaching and research in the FAS on July 1, 2024, when her current term as FAS Dean of Humanities concludes. In the coming weeks, a faculty committee will be appointed to advise on appointing a successor to Katie as the FAS Dean of Humanities.]

To: FAS faculty and staff
Cc: FAS Dean’s Office; FAS Steering; Provost’s Office; President’s Office; University Cabinet; Office of Public Affairs and Communications; GSAS Dean’s Office; Yale College Dean’s Office

Dear FAS colleagues,

I write to share the news that Kathryn Lofton will return to full-time teaching and research in the FAS on July 1, 2024, at the conclusion of her current term as FAS Dean of Humanities.

Since her tenure in 2013, Katie has served in a variety of leadership roles in the FAS. She was the inaugural deputy dean of diversity and faculty development in the FAS from 2016 to 2018; she was a member of the first elected class of the FAS Senate; chaired the University-Wide Ad Hoc Committee on Procedures for Resolving Complaints of Faculty Misconduct; and served as chair of LGBT Studies, the Program in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, and the Department of Religious Studies. In 2019-2020, she served as Acting Dean of the Humanities Division, and was appointed Dean in 2020. And last spring, with my gratitude, she served as Acting Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences.

During the last ten years the Humanities division has strengthened considerably as search, promotion, recruitment, and retention processes have become increasingly equitable and transparent. Katie, followed by Larry Gladney in the role of Dean of Diversity and Faculty Development, supported and fostered this ambition by collaborating with academic units on how to innovate excellence and sustain best practices. Every academic unit in the Humanities has recruited new faculty, reflected on its governance, and strengthened its commitment to transformational hiring, curriculum, and research. Due to faculty effort across ranks, the division stands among the foremost gatherings of humanities faculty in the world.

While Katie occupied the role of FAS Dean of Humanities, the University relocated 18 units within the Humanities division to the Humanities Quadrangle. The Instructional Faculty Working Group, who released their report in April, 2023, advanced changes to our practices that recognize the magnitude of the contributions of instructional faculty across the FAS. The report of the Humanities Doctoral Education Advisory Working Group, published in 2021, outlined a vision for humanities graduate education that engages the current challenges that our humanities PhD students face. Increased oversight for faculty misconduct was introduced in 2017 through a faculty-driven process. These interventions reflect a vision of the FAS as a community where we hold one another to high ethical standards, and where those high standards make it possible for all members of our community to flourish in their pursuit of intellectual work.

Katie is a brilliant thinker, a generous and collaborative colleague, and a tireless advocate for faculty leadership. Throughout her deanship, she continued to teach courses and mentor graduate and undergraduate students. Her commitment to teaching as an essential practice of the liberal arts is manifest in projects and challenges that she undertook as Dean. She also continued to reflect on the scholarly questions that motivate her return to the faculty, authoring essays on secularism, research methodologies, and religion in popular culture. The Humanities—and, indeed, Yale as a whole—is stronger thanks to the integrity and vision with which she approaches her work as Dean and faculty member.

In the coming weeks, I will appoint a faculty committee to advise me on appointing a successor to Katie as the FAS Dean of Humanities. I look forward to engaging with the FAS community throughout this process.

Very best wishes,

Tamar
 

Tamar Szabó Gendler
Dean, Faculty of Arts and Sciences
Vincent J. Scully Professor of Philosophy
Professor of Psychology and Cognitive Science