Academic Vice President John S. Tanner has announced the appointment of John R. Rosenberg, a professor of Spanish, as dean of the College of Humanities at Brigham Young University.
"John is a capable leader and brings much experience as a former associate dean of the college," said Tanner. "He will be very active in faculty development within the College of Humanities. He is truly an example of a wonderful scholar-teacher."
Rosenberg replaces Van C. Gessel, who has been called to preside over the Portland, Oregon mission of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
He graduated from BYU with a double major in psychology and Spanish. He completed a Ph.D. in Spanish literature at Cornell University in 1985 and returned to BYU to assume a full-time teaching position that same year.
He was chair of the Spanish and Portuguese Department from 1993 to 1997 and associate dean of the College of Humanities from 1997 to 2005. He has received five grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities to conduct summer seminars for school teachers.
Rosenberg, a specialist in 19th- and 20th-century Spanish literature, has written two books, edited a third and written scholarly articles. He has participated frequently in national and international conferences.
"With the recent establishment of the Mary Lou Fulton Chair in World Languages, the college will continue to work on creating advanced classes for all languages," said Rosenberg. "I think that the most important thing that we do in the dean's office is to try to provide an environment so that our gifted faculty can best take advantage of their skills and their resources as they seek to bless the lives of their students."
