Last modified: Friday, June 21, 2013
Breithaupt named interim dean of IU Hutton Honors College
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 21, 2013
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- Lauren Robel, Indiana University executive vice president and IU Bloomington provost, has appointed Fritz Breithaupt as interim dean of the Hutton Honors College, to serve during a search for a new permanent dean that will occur this fall.
Breithaupt is a professor of Germanic studies, adjunct professor in comparative literature and affiliated professor of cognitive science, all in the College of Arts and Sciences. His appointment, effective July 1, was approved today by the IU Board of Trustees.
Fritz Breithaupt
He will succeed Matthew Auer, who has served as dean of the Hutton Honors College since 2008. Auer, a professor in the School of Public and Environmental Affairs, has been named dean of the faculty and vice president of academic affairs at Bates College in Lewiston, Maine.
"Fritz has been a stalwart champion of the Hutton Honors College and its faculty," Robel said. "He brings not only his record as an exemplary scholar and teacher but also his success as director of the West European Studies Institute and co-founder of the European Union Center for academic excellence at IU. I am delighted that he is willing to serve as interim dean of this extraordinary honors college."
Breithaupt has published four books, co-edited four volumes and published about 40 full-length articles. His latest books provide humanities responses to work in cognitive science, addressing issues of empathy, narrative thinking and moral reasoning. Currently, he is writing a book on the connection between narrative thinking and moral reasoning, as well as an English follow-up to his work "The Dark Sides of Empathy." He also continues his work on Goethe and the Romantics and on European literature and philosophy since 1740.
In addition to directing the West European Studies Institute and co-founding the EU Center, Breithaupt has been acting director of several other institutes, such as the Center for Eighteenth-Century Studies. The IU Institute for Advanced Study chose him as a Henry H.H. Remak Distinguished Scholar for 2009-10. An IU faculty member since 1996, he has degrees from the University of Hamburg in Germany and an M.A. and Ph.D. in German literature from Johns Hopkins University.
About the Hutton Honors College
The Hutton Honors College recruits diverse, talented and highly motivated students whose presence on campus serves to enhance the education of all undergraduates. By offering a range of small, challenging courses along with a variety of extracurricular and service programs, the college strives to ensure an enriched academic and social experience for its students and to create an environment that fosters active, innovative learning. These opportunities, which include a close working relationship with some of IU's top faculty, affirm a commitment to providing students with both the intimacy of a small college and the breadth of a large, pluralistic and distinguished research institution.
