New in the Dean's Office: Faculty Fellows & Digital Initiatives

This fall, the College of Arts and Letters launched a dean’s office faculty fellows program to build additional leadership capacity in the college. Faculty fellows will work with the college leadership team, unit heads, faculty, and campus partners to advance three college priorities: faculty research, global engagement, and digital literacy.

Dr. Michael Gubser (History), the new Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activities (RSCA) Faculty Fellow, will cultivate a faculty learning community, develop scholarship-related programming, mentor faculty members, and facilitate cross-college communication about research and creative activities. Gubser has earned several significant research-support grants, most recently a fellowship from the Guggenheim Foundation.

Dr. Michael Gubser

Professor Dietrich Maune (SMAD), our first Global Engagement Faculty Fellow, is responsible for internationalizing the curriculum, facilitating recruitment and retention of international students, faculty, and staff, and developing study abroad and other global programming. Maune served six years as director for JMU’s Semester in London program and two years as interim Executive Director of the Center for Global Engagement.

Professor Dietrich Maune

Dr. Andrew Witmer (History), the inaugural Digital Initiatives in Arts and Letters (DIAL) Faculty Fellow, will enhance Arts and Letters’ institutional footprint in digital teaching and scholarship, particularly through innovation in the curriculum. Witmer co-founded the faculty-driven Networked Humanities Institute (2014-2019) at JMU.

Dr. Andrew Witmer

Witmer will be working closely with Dr. Joost Burgers (English), who recently joined JMU as our Arts and Letters Digital Humanities/Social Sciences Faculty Scholar. In that role, Burgers will coordinate and raise the profile of digital humanities efforts within the college, bringing significant expertise in the field: Burgers directs an NEH grant to develop interactive learning modules for digital humanities projects and serves as Associate Director of Digital Yoknapatawpha at University of Virginia.

Dr. Joost Burgers