In making the announcement, Mason Provost S. David Wu said, “We are thrilled to have Ann Ardis joining Mason’s vibrant community of scholars. She will help craft an exciting vision for the college. I am particularly excited about her leadership in interdisciplinary humanities. She will expand and enrich Mason’s intellectual collaboration across campus, and help foster a culture of diversity, inclusion and excellence among faculty.”

“I am incredibly grateful for the opportunities I have had at UD,” Ardis said, “and will always cherish my UD and Newark friends and colleagues.”

At UD, an interim senior vice provost for graduate and professional education will be appointed in the near future.

Ardis was founding director of UD’s Interdisciplinary Humanities Research Center, which supports collaborative multidisciplinary research and teaching, and she earlier served as an associate dean and deputy dean in the College of Arts and Sciences.

She joined UD in 1989 as a member of the English department. Her research areas include turn-of-the-20th-century British literature and culture, modernist studies and the metamorphosis of print culture.

Ardis recently completed a term as co-editor of Modernism/modernity, the official journal of the Modernist Studies Association (Johns Hopkins University Press). Extensively published, she is also the author of Modernism and Cultural Conflict, 1880-1922 (Cambridge University Press), and New Women, New Novels: Feminism and Early Modernism (Rutgers University Press).

She earned her bachelor’s degree in English and political science from the University of Kansas, and her master’s and doctoral degrees in English from the University of Virginia.   

About George Mason University

George Mason University is Virginia’s largest public research university, with an enrollment of 36,000 students from 130 countries and 49 states, including the District of Columbia. Over the past half-century, it has grown rapidly and is recognized for its innovation and entrepreneurship, diversity and commitment to accessibility.

George Mason’s College of Humanities and Social Sciences was ranked 51-75 worldwide in the most recent evaluations by the Academic Rankings of World Universities, which puts it ahead of all universities in Virginia and Washington, D.C. The college’s proximity to Washington, D.C., allows it to serve as a resource and crossroads for an ever-more interconnected world, while providing enhanced opportunities for instruction in history and culture, and addressing global political and social challenges.