New associate dean to coordinate humanities programs

A specialist in Renaissance literature has been named associate dean for the humanities in the College of Letters and Science.

Jane C. Tylus will begin her new duties Aug. 1. She will replace Yvonne Ozzello, who has retired.

As associate dean for the humanities, Tylus will be the point person in the college for more than 20 humanities departments and programs. Letters and Science dean Phillip R. Certain says Tylus will be more than equal to the challenge.

“She has all the right experiences to be an excellent associate dean. In addition, she has a vision of how the humanities should adapt to the changing future,” he says.

An important mission for the humanities will be helping students position themselves on the world stage, Tylus says.

“The ‘global community’ is created through our sensitivity to and understanding of cultural and linguistic differences,” she says. “Careful faculty and student research into Indian dialects and Romanian folk songs, for example, show us how languages are fashioned and revised. Foreign language studies teach ways of communication. Literature, art history and philosophy, among other disciplines, teach students to analyze ideas, explore points of view, and develop and express convincing arguments.”

Consequently, Tylus says it will be a priority to encourage interdisciplinary work, between humanities departments and programs, other UW–Madison schools and colleges, and the broader community.

“The future of the humanities is especially linked to secondary education,” she says. “I would like to further connections with UW–Madison’s excellent School of Education to the benefit of both it and the College of Letters and Science.”

Tylus brings ample administrative experience to her new job, having chaired her own department since 1997. She chaired the Humanities Divisional Committee at UW–Madison in 1996-97, and has served on the Graduate School Research Committee. In addition, she recently was a member of the Committee on Institutional Cooperation Administrative Leadership Program.

Tylus also has distinguished herself in the classroom, teaching courses ranging from graduate seminars to large lecture classes. In 1996, she taught in the university’s study abroad program in Florence, Italy.

On the research front, she is the co-editor (with fellow UW–Madison faculty Margaret Beissinger and Susan Wofford) of “Epic Traditions in the Contemporary World,” published this spring. She also is the author of the book, “Writing and Vulnerability in the Late Renaissance,” published in 1993.

Currently, she is translating the poetry of Lucrezia Tornabuoni dé Medici and has signed on as editor of the early modern volume of Longman’s forthcoming anthology of world literature.

Her list of honors includes a Vilas Associate Award from UW–Madison, a senior fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities and a Folger Shakespeare Library Fellowship. Last year the Edmund Spenser Society recognized her for excellence in an article she published about the Renaissance writer.