Colleen M. Ryan will assume the role of vice provost for faculty on July 1, Provost Caroline Genco announced in an email on Thursday. Ryan currently serves as associate vice provost for faculty at Indiana University Bloomington, where she is a professor of Italian and an affiliate faculty member in the Department of Gender Studies.
The Office of the Vice Provost of Faculty supports faculty career development and wellness, while also overseeing tenure and promotion cases. As vice provost, Ryan will “lead efforts in partnership with the schools to ensure the successful recruitment, retention, and development of faculty across the university,” Genco wrote in the announcement.
At Indiana, Ryan runs the Tenure Advisory Committee, the Initiative for the Advancement of Women, and the Male Advocates and Allies for Equity program. She also helps oversee the Recently Tenured Working Group, a mid-career mentorship series, and recently spearheaded a Conflict Management and Mediation Services initiative. In her role as associate vice provost, Ryan has focused on providing faculty members with opportunities to build community.
“One of the most successful things we’ve done is create a monthly meeting space for women and allies solely for the purpose of socialization,” Ryan told TuftsNow. “So, while we’re supporting faculty in all of the practical and logistical milestones necessary, we’re also creating community and fostering this sense of inter-human purpose that I think is very important.”
Ryan will also join Tufts’ Department of Romance Studies as a tenured faculty member. She researches the Italian American experience and Italian literature and cinema, with an emphasis on gender and sexuality. Her work also focuses on foreign language curriculum development and teaching pedagogy.
Ryan replaces Kevin Dunn, who stepped down in June 2023 to return to full-time faculty duties in the English department.
“Joy is central to what we do, as faculty and administrators,” Ryan told TuftsNow. “Ultimately, we want to help each individual at this university—whatever their backgrounds, their strengths, their identities—find their pathway to personal and professional joy because that is the way they're going to give their best work and their best educational experience to the students at Tufts.”
