• Global Interdisciplinary Studies (GIS) will become a department in the fall. The new GIS Department will continue its regular interdisciplinary major while supporting majors in area and gender studies and a new Peace and Justice major. It will continue to offer its language minors and house Critical and Traditional Languages: Arabic, Chinese, Irish, Japanese and Russian.
• 2017 marks the inaugural year for the Albert Lepage Center for History in the Public Interest, established thanks to a historic $10 million gift from Albert Lepage ’69 CLAS.
• Dean Adele Lindenmeyr established a standing College Committee on Diversity and Inclusion, comprised of nine representatives from CLAS faculty and staff, in addition to three representatives from the undergraduate student body.
• A new Imaging Center opened in Mendel Hall. The Center is a multi-instrument microscopy lab that serves the Science departments in the College, as well as faculty and students throughout the University.
• The 19th annual Villanova Literary Festival this past semester featured five award-winning poets, playwrights and novelists who visited classes and gave readings on campus.
• Two student-produced social justice documentary program productions made their debuts this spring. “POSI+IVE,” which examines a South African woman’s struggle to overcome poverty and destroy the stigma of HIV, made its premiere at Philadelphia’s Kimmel Center. “Hope Works Here,” which illustrated a nonprofit organization’s healing effect on communities in Camden, NJ, premiered on campus.
• Received a two-year grant of $200,000 from the Henry Luce Foundation to support an interdisciplinary network of scholars exploring the intersection of religion and politics.