As the Olympic Games continue in Paris this summer, we're off to a strong start behind the scenes in our preparations for the upcoming autumn term. Most notably, Philip Armstrong officially passed on the baton to Hugh Urban as Chair of the Department of Comparative Studies. 

When Hugh met with the selection committee and the Department's students, faculty, and staff, he noted that he never aspired to be Chair when he first joined in 1998. He's since found the Department to be encouraging and supportive of him, with this now being a time for him to willingly step into the role. Among his many visions for the Department, Hugh is especially invested in working hard to attract and support as diverse of a faculty as possible to advance the Department into the future, as well as to increase student enrollments and the number of majors/minors in our interdisciplinary program and to bolster our overall climate and sense of community.

In particular, Hugh noted the Department's greatest strengths: 

• Interdisciplinarity and the ability to do it very well, as we encounter people in different disciplines and produce incredible scholarship and amazing students; 
• A commitment to questions of difference, power, and social justice, with some commitment to social justice being present in everyone's work
• Collegiality and mutual support, helping each other (both faculty and students) to succeed
• The fact that we're just so different!

With this in mind, we are looking forward to starting out the term with an updated roster, including:

• New faculty member Abigail Lindo
• John Brooks as a new Assistant Professor
• Jason Payne as a new Assistant Teaching Professor
• Van My Truong as a new President's Post-Doctoral Scholar
• Our incoming cohort
  • Thorayah Abdelqader
  • Ciara Bernal
  • Karin Ikeda
  • Nikoo Karimi
  • Koray Saçkan

We can't wait to see you all soon!