Announcing Christopher S. Celenza, Ph.D. as Dean of Georgetown College

Dear Members of the Georgetown University Community:

It is with great pleasure that I write to share that Christopher S. Celenza, Ph.D. will join our community on July 1, 2017 as the next Dean of Georgetown College.

Dr. Celenza comes to us from The Johns Hopkins University, where he is the Vice Provost for Faculty Affairs.  He serves as the Charles Homer Haskins Professor and has a dual appointment in the Department of Classics and the Department of German and Romance Languages.  He also holds secondary appointments in the Department of History and the Humanities Center and has served as the Chair of the Department of Classics, the Founding Director of the Charles Singleton Center for the Study of Premodern Europe, and the Vice Dean for Humanities and Social Sciences at Johns Hopkins.  Prior to his time at Johns Hopkins, he taught in Michigan State University’s History Department and served as their Associate Chair for Graduate Studies.

Dr. Celenza is known for his exceptional scholarship—he is the author of seven books, 40 articles and book chapters, and countless published reviews and short notes—and is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Renaissance Society of America’s 2005 Phyllis Goodhart Gordan Prize for his 2004 book, The Lost Italian Renaissance: Humanists, Historians, and Latin’s Legacy.  You can learn more about his background and scholarship here .

I wish to express my deepest gratitude to all the members of our search committee, for their extraordinary efforts and investment of time over these last few months.  I especially wish to offer my appreciation to Terry Pinkard, Ph.D., University Professor in our Department of Philosophy, and Maria Donoghue, Ph.D., Senior Associate Dean and Professor in our Department of Biology, for their leadership of the search committee.

I also wish to thank Chet Gillis, Ph.D., whose dedicated efforts as Dean of the College since 2009 have strengthened our entire University in significant and meaningful ways.  We look forward to his return to our faculty as a member of our Department of Theology after a sabbatical.

Please join me in extending a very warm welcome to Dr. Celenza.  I look forward to introducing him to our community as he begins in his new role.

You have my very best wishes.

Sincerely,

John J. DeGioia