Kenneth Warren to serve additional two-year Deputy Provost term

Kenneth Warren has accepted an additional two-year term as Deputy Provost for Research and Minority Issues, Provost Thomas Rosenbaum announced earlier this summer.

Warren, the Fairfax M. Cone Distinguished Service Professor in English Language & Literature, was appointed to the newly created position in 2005. Rosenbaum wrote in a letter to faculty and staff that Warren “has set the groundwork that will allow departments to identify and recruit minority faculty and graduate students more expertly, thereby attracting a more representative body of faculty and students and improving the environment for faculty and students of color already at the University.”

Warren serves as co-chair of the Diversity Council, a group of senior administrators that President Zimmer appointed to ensure that the University’s relationships with nonacademic employees, surrounding neighborhoods and business partners reflect its commitment to diversity.

The Provost’s Office plans to announce a postdoctoral program designed to recruit to Chicago bright, young scholars across disciplines. Warren, along with Associate Provost Mary Harvey, will continue to work with departments to bring more minority and women scholars into recruitment and hiring pools, and improve the University’s ability to track progress in improving diversity.

Warren and Harvey co-chair the Work/Life Balance Task Force, which will make recommendations to the Provost on improving the quality of life for University faculty and staff. Warren is also the campus coordinator for the University’s Leadership Alliance program, which encourages students from underrepresented groups to pursue graduate work.

A member of the Chicago faculty since 1991, Warren is interested is American and African-American literature of the late-19th and mid-20th centuries. He is especially focused on the effect of black/white racial differences on American authors’ criticism of American literature.