Saller moves from Dean post to serve as Provost

Richard Saller

Richard Saller, former Dean of the Social Sciences Division, officially began performing his duties as Provost of the University on New Year’s Day.

“I am looking forward to the challenge of continuing the great intellectual tradition of Chicago and learning about the parts of the University less familiar to me, especially the sciences,” said Saller, who was appointed to the University’s second-ranking post Thursday, Nov. 29, by President Randel.

Saller, the Edward L. Ryerson Distinguished Service Professor in History and Classics, succeeds Geoffrey Stone, who has served as Provost since 1993. Stone, the Harry L. Kalven Jr. Distinguished Service Professor in the Law School and the College and former Dean of the Law School, announced in October 2001 his decision to return to full-time research and teaching in the Law School and the undergraduate College.

John Lucy, Professor in Psychology and the Committee on Human Development, will serve as interim Dean of the Social Sciences Division. Since 1999, Lucy, a former William Rainey Harper instructor, has served as Master of the Social Sciences Collegiate Division, Deputy Dean of the Social Sciences Division and Associate Dean of the College.

In announcing his appointment to Provost, Randel praised Saller for his service to the University: “Richard embodies personally the same high standard of intellectual accomplishment that the University itself represents. And he has served with genuine distinction as Dean of the Social Sciences Division. He is thus ideally suited to become the University’s Provost.”

Saller, who has appointments in History, Classical Languages & Literature, New Testament & Early Christian Literature, and the Committees on the Ancient Mediterranean World and Demographic Training, has served as Dean of the Social Sciences Division since 1994.

When he was reappointed to a second deanship term in 1999, former University President Hugo Sonnenschein said, “The division’s faculty has the highest praise for his fair-minded and responsive leadership, his incisive intellectual judgment and his personal integrity.”

A Roman historian with special interests in social, economic and cultural history, Saller has a notable record of publication. His books include Personal Patronage Under the Early Roman Empire; Patriarchy, Property and Death in the Roman Family; and The Roman Empire: Economy, Society and Culture, a work that has been translated into five languages.

Saller received B.A. degrees in Greek and history from the University of Illinois in 1974 and his Ph.D. from Cambridge University in 1978.

After teaching at Swarthmore College for five years, he joined the Chicago faculty in 1984 as an Associate Professor. In 1992, he was awarded a Quantrell Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching. Before becoming Dean of the Social Sciences Division, Saller served as Chairman of the Committee on the Ancient Mediterranean World in 1992 and 1993, and Chairman of History in 1993 and 1994.