First Honors College Dean Candidate to Hold Open Forum

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Naomi Yavneh Klos

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – The first of three candidates for the position of dean of the University of Arkansas Honors College will speak to the campus community Monday, Sept. 8.

Naomi Yavneh Klos, director of the University Honors Program at Loyola University in New Orleans, will make an open forum presentation from 3:30 to 4:30 p.m. Monday, Sept. 8, in Room 120 of the Reynolds Center. All who attend the presentation or meet with the candidate are encouraged to share their feedback by completing an online evaluation form.

Yavneh Klos completed her undergraduate degree in comparative literature at Princeton University and subsequently completed master’s and doctoral degrees in comparative literature at the University of California, Berkeley. She was a professor of interdisciplinary humanities at the University of South Florida for 12 years, and then became the institution’s first university-wide director of undergraduate research and associate dean of the Honors College. In 2011 she became the first full-time director of the University Honors Program at Loyola University, New Orleans, where she also serves as a professor of languages and cultures.

Yavneh Klos is a former president of the Society for the Study of Early Modern Women and founding director of the Arts and Humanities Division of the Council of Undergraduate Research. She is a member of the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities Honors Consortium and serves on the Board of Directors of the National Collegiate Honors Council. Yavneh Klos received a Phi Beta Kappa Fellowship and a Fulbright Dissertation Fellowship to the Vatican, and was in the inaugural cohort of Loyola’s Ignatian Faculty Fellows Program.

Yavneh Klos has published extensively on gender and spirituality in Italian Renaissance culture and has published and lectured frequently on undergraduate research and honors education. She is currently writing a book titled Not Just for Jesuits: Ignatian Values in Honors and Beyond. Yavneh Klos is fluent in Italian and French, and reads Latin, Ancient Greek and Hebrew.

A half-hour reception will follow her talk.

The other two candidates are Jerry Herron, dean of the Irvin D. Reid Honors College at Wayne State University in Detroit, and Sumana Datta, executive director of the Honors and Undergraduate Research Program at Texas A&M University in College Station. Complete vitas for all of the candidates are available online at the Honors College website.

The search committee is led by Javier Reyes, vice provost for distance education and professor of economics, and includes Sidney Burris, professor of English and director of the Fulbright Honors Program; Ed Clausen, interim department head and professor, Ralph E. Martin Leadership Chair in chemical engineering; Kirstin Erickson, associate professor of anthropology and director of Latin American and Latino Studies; Gary Ferrier, University Professor of Economics; Carol Gattis, associate dean of the Honors College and associate professor of engineering; Padma Mana, Honors College student ambassador and Bodenhamer Fellow; Mark Power, associate vice chancellor for development; Ann Rosso, Campaign Arkansas Steering Committee member and chair of the Honors College Campaign Committee; and Nan Smith-Blair, associate professor of nursing.