Whether it is his racy comments about who's getting it on in "Much Ado About Nothing," or his advice to sophomores about class choices, many students have heard about Professor Kevin Dunn's lively personality and exciting English classes.
"Kevin Dunn knows how to entertain as he educates," said junior Daniel Rosenberg, an English and philosophy double major who is one of Dunn's advisees. "It's a rare gift among professors."
As the new dean of academic affairs for arts and sciences, Dunn will be, in his words, "look[ing] after the happiness of the faculty."
"I don't want to impose initiatives that don't come from the needs of the faculty," he said. "That being said, I do have a strong interest in fostering interdisciplinary teaching and scholarship, and I hope that I can encourage more of that at Tufts."
While Dunn is looking forward to his new role, many students voiced dismay upon learning that Dunn will not teach as much in the future. Dun plans to teach one course each year, which will likely be "The English Bible."
"I was planning on taking his Shakespeare course next fall," junior English minor Courtney Brown said. "I'm saddened because I was really looking forward to that class."
Dunn, who specializes in Shakespearean and Renaissance Literature, also did not teach last fall either because he was on sabbatical. He spent this time finishing a draft of Opening the Book, which is a textbook for the Bible as a literature course. He hopes to have the work published by McGraw-Hill.
Dunn has other publications under his belt, including Figures of Speech: Dramatic Representations of Counsel in Shakespeare and His Contemporaries and Pretexts of Authority: The Rhetoric of Authorship in the Renaissance Preface, both published by Stanford University Press.
While other children dreamed of becoming astronauts and famous performers, Dunn was always set on his current career.
"It's funny - the first thing I can remember wanting to be as a child was a professor," Dunn said. He originally considered a physics major but found that his English course was more challenging. "I think I responded to the difficulties and frustrations of having to interpret texts."
Dunn grew up in Louisville, KY and was an undergraduate at the University of Louisville. After graduation, he headed to Oxford to study, and he returned a few years later to the University of Louisville for more graduate work. Dunn later received his Ph.D. from Yale, and he taught at Yale for eight years before coming to Tufts.
Though he is now busy with his new administrative responsibilities, Dunn is taking some time to enjoy his new view from Ballou Hall.
"It turns out that it's a great place to watch the campus red-tailed hawks, which are always swooping past my windows going after pigeons and squirrels," he said.
