Anthonya Visser appointed new Dean of the Faculty of Arts

The Board of the University of Groningen has appointed Prof. Anthonya (Thony) Visser as the new Dean of the Faculty of Arts as of 1 November 2019. The appointment is for a period of four years. The Faculty Board is proud to have found an academic leader with experience in both teaching and research to succeed Prof. Gerry Wakker after a term of over 10 years as Dean. Visser, Professor of Modern European Literature and Culture, in particular German, has worked at Leiden University since 1999 and been the academic director of the Leiden University Centre for the Arts in Society (LUCAS) since 2014.

About Anthonya Visser

Thony Visser has held many managerial positions both within and outside Leiden University, including degree programme chair of the Bachelor’s programm in German Language and Culture and the Master’s programme in Literary Studies. She was a member of the Humanities Division of the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO), a member of the board of the Netherlands Research School for Literary Studies (OSL) and a member of the Supervisory Board of the Fryske Akademy. Further afield, Thony Visser has held several international positions, including senior fellow at the Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies and Visiting Professor at the Emory University in Atlanta. She has also sat on committees charged with evaluating research in the Humanities in countries including the United Kingdom and Norway. In recent years, the professor has worked at LUCAS with a focus on achieving financial stability, making working processes more transparent and streamlining the organization.

Logical next step

Visser: ‘I am honoured to be appointed as Dean of the wonderful Faculty of Arts at the UG. It is not only a logical next step in my career, but also a fantastic challenge. I will be delighted to put the experience I have gained in the Humanities in Leiden, the Netherlands and abroad into practice in Groningen.’