Office of the Dean
Karin A. Wurst
Dean
College of Arts and Letters
Michigan State University
320 Linton Hall
East Lansing, Michigan 48824-1044
Telephone: (517) 355-4597
Fax: (517) 355-0159
E-mail: wurst@msu.edu
The Michigan State University Board of Trustees approved the appointment of Karin A. Wurst as dean of the College of Arts and Letters on October 20, 2006.
As dean, Wurst is responsible for all aspects of the academic administration of one of MSU's largest colleges, with executive oversight of more than twenty departments, schools, and affiliated programs.
Until her appointment as dean, Wurst was professor of German in the Department of Linguistics and Germanic, Slavic, Asian and African Languages. She succeeds Patrick McConeghy, also a professor of German, who has served as acting dean of the college since 2004.
Wurst’s goals for the college include enhancing and expanding collaborations with academic units across the university and increasing its level of community engagement. She will also focus on the college’s research climate, on improving the student experience, and on ensuring that a strong humanist dimension is incorporated into MSU’s international and global studies initiatives.
“The ability to define complex problems in all their dimensions—a skill that the arts and humanities cultivate so well—is becoming increasingly crucial,” Wurst says. “Teaching students how to think creatively and communicate with clarity will remain a primary mission of the college. At the same time, Arts and Letters faculty and students will continue to enrich the quality of the university’s cultural life through performances, exhibitions, lectures, conferences, visiting artists, and other academic events.”
Wurst served as acting chairperson of the Department of Linguistics and Germanic, Slavic, Asian, and African Languages in 2005 and has been chairperson of the University Graduate Council since 2005. She is a founding member of the Global Literary and Cultural Studies research cluster and recognized nationally for her expertise in graduate student mentoring and engaged learning.
She received a PhD in German from Ohio State University in 1985 and joined MSU in 1988. Her academic interests include eighteenth- and nineteenth-century German literature and culture. She is the author of books and articles on the writers J.M.R. Lenz and Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, and on German fashion, entertainment, and consumption during the Classical and Romantic periods. She is past president of the Society for German Renaissance and Baroque Literature and active in the American Association of Teachers of German and the Modern Language Association.