A Wisconsin native at heart,  Jo Ann Moran Cruz, the new dean of Humanities and Natural Sciences, came from Georgetown University, and has also taught in Chile, Turkey, Italy and Qatar.

The former chairwoman of the history department at Georgetown, Cruz hopes to globalize Loyola and create connections with other universities.

Before Cruz had accepted the deanship in April 2008, English professor Mary McCay served as the interim dean of the college. McCay was elected after former dean Frank Scully accepted a job at another university.

While McCay was interim dean from fall 2007 to fall 2008, Loyola began a national search for a new dean.

According to Richard Wilson, senior academic counselor and member of the search committee, Cruz’s academic scholarship, her experience as an administrator at Georgetown and the way she presented herself were some reasons the committee choose her as dean.

“I think that she will start a lot of new initiatives to help the college to grow, to help support our faculty with things that they want to do in their research and teaching,” Wilson said.

Cruz studied late medieval and early modern British history and later focused on the works of Dante. Cruz has also spoken at conferences in the Middle East and written on Middle Eastern topics.

The topics of these conferences ranged from popular medieval perceptions of Islam to technologies from the Middle East and their impact on medieval Europe, to a comparative paper on the role of religious texts in elementary schools in the Middle East and in Europe.

In addition to her professorship and chair in the history department, Cruz also helped direct international initiatives and was head of the faculty senate at Georgetown.

Cruz would like to apply her penchant for international education to the college. One way, according to Cruz, would be to promote study abroad among students, increase the role of faculty globally and partnering entire programs abroad.

“The new center for Latin American and Caribbean studies can develop partnerships with universities in Latin America and the Caribbean,” she offered as an example.
Cruz said this center is new and searching for a director. After selecting a director, the center will immediately begin to move forward in terms of mission, partnering with universities, promoting study abroad programs and promoting research in Latin America, she said.

Cruz said she would like to establish relationships with administrators at other universities. She would also like to market Loyola abroad to potential international students.

OTHER TENTATIVE PLANS

As the new dean, Cruz would like to engage the College of Humanities and Natural Sciences in more service learning programs.

“I’d like to work closely with the Lindy Boggs Literacy Center to build up courses and to promote service learning (at) the elementary level,” she said.
Cruz would also like to work with Loyola alumni to get support for the college’s programs.

“I’m already meeting with alums, talking to them about the different directions that Loyola is moving and promoting programs of HNS (Humanities and Natural Sciences),” she said.

“I would hope that we would get some support, for example, for the new center for Latin American and Caribbean studies, that we can begin to put more professorships in place, (and) that we can continue to get more funding or federal grants, state grants.”

Cruz also has been working with other departments.

“I would like to take the interdisciplinary programs that are in place as well as some new proposals that are coming along, and I would like to put some administrative support under them and find a space for them,” she said.

According to Cruz, a proposal for an interdisciplinary program is in motion to create a legal studies minor within the College of Humanities and Natural Sciences and the College of Social Sciences. If approved, the program would draw faculty who teach legal courses from different colleges and departments.

“It could be helpful for students who are pre-law but it can be helpful for students who simply want to be better informed about legal issues when they graduate from Loyola,” she said. “It allows them to get these various perspectives.”

Cruz said she hopes to get to know the students at Loyola better. She would like to teach a course in the history department, she said, especially in the medieval field.

Andrea Castillo can be reached at [email protected].