Faculty Resources
DeBartolo Endowed Chair
The two-year rotating DeBartolo Endowed Chair in Liberal Arts within the Humanities Institute seeks to recognize a tenured CAS faculty member who is both an active scholar and engaged teacher. The DeBartolo Chair will be expected to be an active participant in the campus community and oversee a major project (or series of projects) for the USF Humanities Institute within one of the Institute鈥檚 areas of strategic growth:
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- Advancing interdisciplinary connections and collaborations between departments, schools, and/or colleges
- Developing support for faculty seeking promotion to associate or full professor
- Creating community and professional opportunities for graduate 猫咪视频apps
- Expanding community outreach
Application deadline is September 15, 2025. Contact Claudine Boniec for more information.
2023-2025
Meredith Johnson (English)
After a rigorous application process, the Humanities Institute welcomed Dr. Meredith Johnson as the 2023 - 2025 Edward DeBartolo Endowed Chair. Her energy, vision, and scholarship were a tremendous addition to HI. Read more about her time as DeBartolo Chair below.
Q: What are you most excited about as part of your new position as the DeBartolo Endowed Chair?
A: As DeBartolo Endowed Chair, I will lead an innovative, interdisciplinary mentoring initiative that integrates evidence-based practices shown to cultivate and sustain well-being. I鈥檓 most excited to bring faculty and graduate 猫咪视频apps back together after such a sustained period of isolation and hardship. My work during the next several years will foster meaningful social connections among peers, help participants cultivate their sense of purpose, support behavioral and physical health, and aid in professional development.
Q: How long have you been a faculty member at USF?
A: I joined the faculty at USF in 2007. Previously, I studied here as an undergraduate in the 1990s. The transformation that has occurred during my 20+ years of coming to campus is remarkable. Walking under the flowering trellis bursting with bougainvillea, by the bronze bull statues in the Marshall Center鈥檚 South Plaza, and into the spacious MSC atrium would have been unimaginable back then.
Q: Do you have a favorite class(es) you've taught?
A: My work with the Judy Genshaft Honors College (JGHC) has been especially rewarding. I recently taught an ethics seminar that emphasized civic engagement with its semester-long focus on health equity and service-learning. My JGHC 猫咪视频apps designed accessible and inclusive documents for visually impaired readers now in use by our client, the Florida Department of Health-Hillsborough. In fall 2023, I am teaching a new honors course, The Science of Happiness and Well-Being, which dovetails with my work as the DeBartolo Endowed Chair.
Q: What are you reading right now?
A: Listening to audiobooks is one of my favorite hobbies. I lean heavily towards fiction in my free time, most recently Hanya Yanagihara鈥檚 novels A Little Life and To Paradise. Both books offer deeply moving stories about the impulse to protect our loved ones and the suffering we endure when we aren鈥檛 up to the task.
Q: Why do you think the humanities are an important area of study?
A: What does it mean to live a good life? Under which conditions do people flourish personally and collectively? These questions are central to my work as the DeBartolo Endowed Chair, and they cannot be fully addressed without the insights contributed by those studying language, philosophy, history, ethics, religion, the arts, and other humanistic fields of inquiry.
Fall 2024 - Spring 2025 Social Connection Peer-Mentoring Pilot Program
This past spring wrapped up Meredith Johnson鈥檚 two-year appointment as the DeBartolo
Endowed Chair in Liberal Arts. Her appointment was the first time this position was
housed under the Humanities Institute, and Dr. Johnson brought energy and determination
to the team that was needed to successfully bring her vision to life.
During the 2024-2025 academic year, Dr. Johnson launched an interdisciplinary, peer-mentoring
initiative that served over 30 permanent non-tenure track, tenure track, and tenured
faculty on multiple USF campuses. Her goal was to use the latest research on dynamic
mentoring models and social connection to create an innovative and robust framework
that supports productivity, retention, and presence among faculty.
She brought together and studied three cohorts of faculty from Tampa and the St. Pete
campus from 12 different departments. The program consisted of meetings, workshops,
and evidence-based interventions shown to promote social connection that positively
correlates with employee engagement and satisfaction, increased workplace performance,
and decreased business costs.鈥疐indings showed considerable gains in engagement and
satisfaction when compared to the control group (scholars who did not participate
in the program).
As part of her research, Dr. Johnson has published several papers and presented her
research at multiple conferences that focus on organizational rhetoric. Her analysis
and publications will continue even as her term as Endowed Chair has come to a close.
I feel like this is a path to retention. I didn鈥檛 search the job boards this year for the first time since I arrived.
This program makes me feel like I belong in Tampa Bay and USF.
As an early-career faculty member, it has been amazing to have a community and learn from other members of the cohort.