Longtime Faculty Member Becomes CLAS Associate Dean
Trysh Travis stepped into her new role on Aug. 16
As a cultural and literary historian, Trysh Travis enjoys wrestling with complex, intricate issues.
Now, the longtime University of Florida faculty member will bring her methodical problem-solving skills to her new role as Associate Dean for the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.
As Associate Professor of Women’s Studies, Travis has worked to support students, faculty and staff over the years. While this is not her first foray into leadership, she is eager to make a broader impact in her new role.
“I’ve been at UF for nearly 20 years and now I’m excited (as any Hamilton fan would be) to be ‘in the room where it happens,’” Travis said.
As the cognizant associate dean for the humanities departments in the college, Travis recognizes the need for innovation in today’s liberal arts education. She’s confident the college is up for the challenge.
“In the last 10 years, our teaching has become more innovative and exciting, our research more robust, and our college a more joyous place to work,” she said. “We’ve built incredible capacity in our faculty, students and curriculum – sometimes in the face of long odds.”
Travis arrived at UF in 2004 as an Assistant Professor of Women’s Studies. Before her time at UF, she worked at Southern Methodist University as an Assistant Professor of English. She earned a bachelor’s degree from New York University. While teaching high school, Travis earned a master of arts degree in English from the Bread Loaf School of English at Middlebury College. She earned her PhD in American Studies from Yale University.
In recent years, Travis took on an instrumental role in the development of the UF Quest program. First piloted in spring 2019, Quest reimagined the general education curriculum to nurture intellectual curiosity across disciplines. Travis chaired a working group of faculty in 2016 to lead the college’s response to the Quest proposal and later served as a faculty liaison to the UF Quest Curriculum Committee. In partnership with the Associate Provost for Undergraduate Affairs, Travis co-chaired the university-wide committee charged with implementing the new curriculum and helped it come to fruition.
“Our students are smart — scary smart,” she said. “And they are ready to think big thoughts.”
As a researcher, Travis has examined gendered popular culture, specifically in the history of medicine and therapeutic cultures. She received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities in 2017 and 2005, as well as other research grants and fellowships. Her first book, “The Language of the Heart: The 12-Step Recovery Movement from Alcoholics Anonymous to Oprah Winfrey,” chronicles the history of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) in relation to broader American traditions of self-help. She also served as co-editor, alongside Timothy Aubry, of “Rethinking Therapeutic Culture.” Travis’ writings have been widely published in academic journals like American Quarterly, Book History, Publications of the Modern Language Association (PMLA), and Contemporary Drug Problems. Travis has won numerous awards acknowledging her service to the college, including Faculty Advisor of the Year in 2011.
Looking ahead in her role, Travis says her top priority is to create optimal conditions for faculty to provide the most meaningful education possible for students. “Our students are smart — scary smart,” she said. “And they are ready to think big thoughts.”
Travis hopes to advance a fusion of experiential learning with traditional methods. “I’m excited to be in a place like CLAS where we have crazily innovative teaching going on alongside the print-based forms of intellectual engagement that I’ve loved since I was a kid,” Travis said.
“That diversity, that commitment to tradition as well as to what’s new and ‘hot’ — that’s what’s great about our college today,” she said.
