Boyer to serve third term as Dean of the College

John Boyer

Last month, John Boyer, the Martin A. Ryerson Distinguished Service Professor in History, was appointed to a third term as Dean of the College. Boyer’s third term will begin July 1.

“John has been an exemplary Dean over the past decade, and we are most fortunate that he is willing to continue to provide leadership to the College,” said President Randel in making the appointment.

Boyer is the first person to serve three terms as Dean of the College. He also has served in this position longer than anyone else––nine and a half years. The longest tenure of any of Boyer’s predecessors was that of Chauncey Boucher, who served nine years, from 1926 to 1935.

During Boyer’s two terms as Dean of the College, he has strengthened the College curriculum, admissions program, programs in foreign study, internships and foreign language instruction. “I’m very proud of the progress my colleagues and I have made so far,” said Boyer. “I’m also very pleased with the significant improvements that have been made to student life. In my third term, I hope to continue to build on the successes we’ve already achieved, in order to support the intellectual initiative and creativity of all of our students.”

According to the committee that recommended the reappointment, Boyer “has the energy, the forward-looking vision and the dedication to undergraduates necessary to address the question of what sort of education we should offer in the College of the University, and how to achieve it.”

Before being named Dean of the College in 1992, Boyer served as Master of the Social Sciences Collegiate Division and Deputy Dean of the Social Sciences Division from 1987 to 1992, and as Acting Dean of the Division from 1992 to 1993. He also has been Chairman of the Committee on European Studies, the Western Civilization teaching staff and of the Council on Advanced Studies in the Humanities and Social Sciences.

Boyer is an expert in modern central European history with an emphasis on 19th-century Austria. Recent publications include Culture and Political Crisis in Vienna: Christian Socialism in Power, 1897-1918. Boyer joined the faculty after earning his A.M. in 1969 and his Ph.D. in 1975, both from the University.

In recent years, he has produced a series of papers on important events in University history, including the presidency of Robert Maynard Hutchins and the student unrest of the 1960s. Boyer also co-curated “Building for a Long Future,” an exhibition on early donors to the University, which was on display in the Special Collections department at the Joseph Regenstein Library last year.

“The College has benefited enormously from John Boyer’s stewardship, as faculty, staff, students and alumni all agree, and we are all much in his debt on that account,” said Randel.

“I particularly welcome the prospect of working with him during another term to ensure the College’s continuing vitality.”