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2015 Arhu Leadership Appointments

September 16, 2015 American Studies | College of Arts and Humanities | English | National Foreign Language Center

Congratulations to the new leaders in the College of Arts and Humanities!

To: Colleagues


From: BonnieThornton Dill, Dean

Date: September 15, 2015


Re: Leadership Appointments

I am pleased to announce the following leadership appointments within the College of Arts and Humanities:

Kent Cartwright is serving as chair of the Department of English. His term will run August, 17, 2015 through June 30, 2016. In this year as chair, Cartwright will give special attention to undergraduate programs, the writing programs and the professional-track faculty, among his other broad administrative responsibilities as unit head.

Cartwright has written extensively on medieval and Renaissance literature, especially late medieval and sixteenth-century English drama and literature. He is the author of “Shakespearean Tragedy and Its Double: The Rhythms of Audience Response,” which explores the various devices and techniques, including those of “engagement” and “detachment,” employed by Shakespeare to elicit emotional and intellectual responses from audiences. His second book, “Theatre and Humanism: English Drama in the Sixteenth Century,” studies the hundred years of drama before Shakespeare, analyzing the transformation of an allegorical, didactic and religious drama at the beginning of the period into a theater at the end of the century criticized as emotional, fantasy-arousing and even immoral. He previously served as chair of the University of Maryland Senate (2002-03), a trustee of the Shakespeare Association of America (2007-10), chair of the English department (2007-12) and president of the Association of Departments of English (2015).

Cartwright earned his doctorate in English literature from Case Western Reserve University.

David Ellis is serving as acting executive director of the National Foreign Language Center (NFLC), effective July 1, 2015. Ellis provides overall leadership and direction to the center and is principal investigator of the center’s federally-funded STARTALK program, which is designed to increase national capacity in critical-need languages. He is also program manager of the Analysis and Language Learning contract, a federally-funded project to develop self-guided web-based learning materials in dozens of critical-need languages.

Ellis joined the NFLC in 2006 after leaving the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, CA, where he was a faculty developer. He has nearly 20 years of experience in foreign language teaching, training and curriculum design. He is currently focused on developing a model of learner persistence and clarifying the role of technology in foreign language education.

Ellis earned his doctorate in Second Language Acquisition from University of Maryland.

Psyche Williams-Forson is serving as chair of the Department of American Studies, effective August, 1, 2015. As chair, she will focus on increasing undergraduate enrollment and rebranding American Studies at UMD to highlight cutting-edge research.

Williams-Forson's research and teaching interests include cultural studies, material culture, food, women’s studies and social and cultural history of the United States in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. She is the author of “Taking Food Public: Redefining Foodways in a Changing World” and the award-winning book, “Building Houses Out of Chicken Legs: Black Women, Food, & Power,” which examines the complexities of black women’s legacies using food as a form of cultural work. Her new research explores food shaming and food policing in communities of color. Williams-Forson is the recipient of several campus teaching awards and fellowships, including a Smithsonian Institution Senior Fellowship and a Ford Foundation Postdoctoral Diversity Fellowship. She previously served as director of graduate studies in the department (2009-12).

Williams-Forson earned her doctorate in American Studies from University of Maryland.

Please join me in congratulating our new leaders in the College of Arts and Humanities. I would also like to take this opportunity to offer my warm thanks to the chairs and directors who recently made important transitions in their careers: former English chair William Cohen who now serves as associate provost and dean of undergraduate studies; former American Studies chair Nancy Struna who enjoys a well-earned research leave; and former NFLC executive director Catherine Ingold who has retired after 19 years with NFLC.