COMPARATIVE LITERATURE, SPANISH - Leah Middlebrook, associate professor of comparative literature and Spanish for the College of Arts and Sciences, has been appointed as the new director of the Oregon Humanities Center. Her new position starts July 1, 2024. Middlebrook brings a rich humanities background to the position and she said the position is an honor she takes seriously.

COMPARATIVE LITERATURE - From nontraditional undergraduate student to prize-winning essayist, the journey feels far from complete for Laurel Sturgis O’Coyne. The University of Oregon doctoral candidate marked a milestone this April when she won the A. Owen Aldridge Prize in Comparative Literature for her 2020 essay “Toward Weaving/Reading Hemispheric Land and Literature.”

Twenty outstanding faculty members, the most since 2007, have been selected for the sought-after Fund for Faculty Excellence Awards for the 2021-22 academic year. The fund is designed to reward, recognize and retain world-class teaching and research at the UO.