Dean Announces Closure Of Center For Renaissance & Baroque Studies

For Immediate Release April 20, 2010 Dean Announces Closure of Center for Renaissance & Baroque Studies

For Immediate Release April 20, 2010 Dean Announces Closure of Center for Renaissance & Baroque Studies

For Immediate Release

April 20, 2010

Contacts: Nicky Everette, meve@umd.edu, 301-405-6714

Dean Announces Closure of Center for Renaissance & Baroque Studies

As some of you know, I have decided to close the Center for Renaissance & Baroque Studies, and I am working with Adele Seeff to preserve core components of the Center’s portfolio before the effective closure date of July 23, 2010. I will ensure that the University meets all outstanding financial and programmatic obligations the Center has incurred, including the smooth running of the National Endowment for the Humanities summer seminar for college and university faculty, the Crossing Borders/Breaking Boundaries summer institute for secondary school teachers, and the Shakespeare Camp.

My decision to close the Center was not an easy one. I was confronted with a difficult choice between competing goods. On the one hand were the important scholarly record and the vibrant interdisciplinary, interdepartmental intellectual communities that the Center has provided. On the other hand were the four assistant professor positions that appropriating the Center’s budget makes available. Ultimately, I decided to protect the base budget for teaching undergraduate and graduate programs.

For nearly thirty-one years, the Center has played a very significant role in the college’s research, scholarship, and teaching of Shakespeare, early modern women, medieval and renaissance studies, and in various outreach initiatives. I value the work of the Center and will maintain central activities of its portfolio by housing them in other departments or colleges that make sense intellectually.

Specifically, Seminars for Teachers and the Northwood High School Collaboration will be managed by the College of Education. Likewise, the College of Education is actively considering support for the Crossing Borders/Breaking Boundaries summer institute, which has been identified by the Maryland State Department of Education as a model professional development program. Homes are currently being sought for Early Modern Women: An Interdisciplinary Journal and the triennial Attending to Early Modern Women symposium series. The Journal will stay at the University of Maryland and will consider submissions through June 2011. The Attending proceedings volumes for the 2006 and 2009 symposia will continue in pre-press production here at the University.

A number of faculty and graduate students have expressed the desire to organize a working group with colleagues whose research and teaching specializations lie in the broad category of early modern studies. I encourage such activity and will be happy to provide modest funding and some space to realize this goal.

Following the official closure date, correspondence regarding the Center should be addressed to James F. Harris, Dean, 301-405-0949.

On behalf of the college and the campus, I give my sincere thanks to Dr. Adele Seeff and her staff for their many years of creative leadership and service.