Dear Students,
I am thrilled to be serving this academic year as Dean (Interim) of the Hutton Honors College and hope to meet many of you in the months ahead. As for myself, I am a professor of History in the College of Arts and Sciences and have previously served as Director of LAMP (the Liberal Arts + Management Program) and as Faculty President. I have published chiefly on eighteenth- and nineteenth-century French history (including a prize-winning paper co-authored with colleagues in Informatics and an undergraduate who went on to be named a Rhodes Scholar). You can learn more about my scholarship and writing on my website.
As Dean, my job is chiefly to recruit faculty, structure the curriculum, and advocate for the Hutton Honors College to the campus and community at large. But I also teach small HON-H seminars, because teaching and getting to know students has always been my favorite part of being a professor. I hope these challenging, interdisciplinary courses will become your favorite part of being a student!
IU Bloomington is a very big place. Our aim at the Hutton Honors College is to make campus feel a little bit smaller and to help you build networks and friendships across and between areas of study. Some of you are finance majors, some of you are pre-meds; some of you love learning languages or making art or playing an instrument. You all have things to learn from each other. Your college experience will be so much richer for having met fellow students with interests different from your own.
The HHC has a lot to offer; we hope you will take advantage of it. We want you to succeed, we want you to “make the world a better place” (in Mr. Hutton’s words), and we want you to make new friends and study new subjects.
I look forward to meeting you soon.
Rebecca L. Spang
she/her/Professor
Dean (Interim), Hutton Honors College
Distinguished Professor of History, College of Arts & Sciences