Georgetown
Provost: Dr. O'Donnell
Vice
Provost for ISC James J. O'Donnell, has been named Provost of
Georgetown University effective July 1, 2002. In announcing Dr.
O'Donnell's appointment, Georgetown President John J. DeGioia
said that Dr. O'Donnell has the necessary combination of academic
and administrative experience as well as appreciation for the
University's Catholic and Jesuit identity to lead Georgetown's
Main Campus successfully. "Jim is an established scholar,
talented teacher and effective administrator. His unique combination
of distinguished scholarship and administrative leadership will
make him a dynamic and effective Provost at Georgetown,"
said President DeGioia.
Dr.
O'Donnell, professor of Classical Studies, is a distinguished
scholar and a recognized innovator in the application of networked
information technology in higher education. As VP of ISC, he oversees
200 staff and a $41 million annual budget. He is also the Faculty
Master of Hill College House and is president-elect of the American
Philological Association, the primary professional association
for classicists in the U.S. and Canada.
"Georgetown
excites me," Dr. O'Donnell said, "because it is big
enough to make a difference in higher education and research nationally
and internationally but small enough to care intensely about how
it makes that difference and to keep a strong focus on the students
it exists to serve."
Dr.
O'Donnell has been at Penn since 1981, holding a variety of academic
and administrative positions. He has published widely and lectured
extensively on the cultural history of the late antique Mediterranean
world and the application of technology in higher education.
In
2000, he chaired a National Academy of Science expert study group
reviewing the role of information technology in the services and
strategies of the Library of Congress; this report was published
as LC21: A Digital Strategy for the Library of Congress.
He is the author of five books, including a three-volume edition
of Augustine's Confessions, and he is now writing another
with the working title What Augustine Didn't Confess. In
1990, Dr. O'Donnell co-founded the Bryn Mawr Classical Review,
the second on-line scholarly journal ever created in the humanities.
He is a Trustee of the National Humanities Center and has also
served as a Councillor of the Medieval Academy of America. Before
coming to Penn, he taught at Bryn Mawr, Catholic and Cornell.
He has also held visiting appointments at Johns Hopkins, the University
of Washington and Yale.
Dr.
O'Donnell earned his B.A. Phi Beta Kappa and was elected Latin
Salutatorian at Princeton in 1972. He received a Ph.D. from Yale
in 1975.