Finding Aid for the Faculty of Arts and Letters, Office of the Dean David Willbern, Associate Dean (Graduate Education) Office Files, 1983-1991 [1986-1989 bulk]

16/1/940

University Archives
The State University of New York at Buffalo

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Collection Overview

Title:	Faculty of Arts and Letters, Office of the Dean David Willbern, Associate Dean (Graduate Education) Office Files, 1983-1991 [1986-1989 bulk]
Collection Number:	16/1/940
Creator:	State University of New York at Buffalo, Faculty of Arts and Letters, Office of the Dean
Extent:	5 manuscript boxes, 1 half boxes (2.75 linear feet)
Repository:	University Archives, The State University of New York at Buffalo
Abstract:	The Office Files of David Willbern, circa 1986-1989, contains materials pertinent to his tenure as Associate Dean of Graduate Education. The collection contains materials relevant to the administration of the Faculty of Arts and Letters, special programming, departmental matters, conferences and both graduate and faculty funding.

Biographical Note

David Willbern, a graduate of Amherst College and University of California, Berkeley, came to State University of New York at Buffalo in 1973 as an Assistant Professor of English. He became an Associate Professor in the Department of English in 1979. In 1997, he was made full Professor and he continues to teach in the department of English. Willbern worked for many years in academic administration; acting as Associate Dean for Educational Technology for the College of Arts and Sciences from 1997 to 1998. Willbern also served as the Associate Vice Provost for Educational Technology from 1998 to 2002. He held the position of Associate Dean of Arts and Letters three times -- from 1986 to 1989, again from 1992 to 1993 and from 1996 to 1997. In 1998, the Faculty of Arts and Letters joined with the Faculty of Social Sciences and the Faculty of Natural Sciences and Mathematics to become College of Arts and Sciences.

As a professor, Willbern taught undergraduate courses in composition and literature, American and English Renaissance literature, Elizabethan and Jacobean drama, Shakespeare, literature and psychology, and bestsellers. Willbern instructed graduate seminars in similar topics, as well as Freud, the revenge play (Classical and Renaissance), theory of psychotherapy, history of literary criticism, and psychoanalytic criticism.

Historical Note

The Faculty of Arts and Letters came into being in 1967 when the University planned a massive academic reorganization. The academic units were divided into seven different faculties, of which Arts and Letters was one. It originally consisted of a number of departments that were in the original College of Arts and Letters including Art, Classics, Drama and Speech, English, Modern Languages and Literatures, and Music. Other newly-formed departments were added to the faculty later like American Studies, African-American Studies, Comparative Literature, and the Center for Media Study. It was disbanded in 1998 when the University again reorganized and reestablished the College of Arts and Sciences.

Scope and Content Note

The Office Files of David Willbern, circa 1986-1989, contains materials pertinent to his tenure as Associate Dean of Graduate Education. The collection contains materials relevant to the administration of the Faculty of Arts and Letters, special programming, departmental matters, conferences and both graduate and faculty funding.

Types of materials included in the collection are clippings and articles, committee meeting minutes, reports and proposals, correspondence, memoranda, handwritten notes and fellowship applications.

Arrangement

The collection is divided into five series: Administration, Conferences, Departments, Graduate Students and Programs. The information within each series is arranged chronologically.

Series 1, Administration, includes information on the Arts and Letters Institute, the Arts and Letters Computer and Library Committees, and faculty grants provided by the Julian Park Fund. This series also contains the meeting minutes for the Graduate School Executive Committee and the Arts and Letters Graduate Divisional Committee, as well as the graphics associated with the publications of the 1987-1988 and 1988-1989 Arts and Letters Annual Report.

Series 2, Conferences, consists of notes, memoranda and correspondence on the department of Comparative Literature's conference, Between Nationalism and Fascism, which was planned for 1988.

Series 3, Departments, contains correspondence, notes and memos on the departmental graduate programs associated with the Faculty of Arts and Letters.

Series 4, Graduate Students, is divided into four subseries -- admissions, directories, funding and awards, and groups. This series contains reports on recruitment and admission, a SUNY-wide directory of minority PhD students, graduate group applications for active status, and copious information on the funding of graduate students through assistantships, fellowships and scholarships.

Series 5, Programs, contains information on the Master of Arts in Humanities and plans for a program in Arts Management. This series includes memos, program evaluations and notes.

Container List

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Related Resources

16/1/883 Faculty of Arts and Letters Office of the Dean Outgoing Correspondence, 1985-1989.

16/1/899 Faculty of Arts and Letters, Office of the Dean, John Dings, Associate Dean (Undergraduate Education), Office Files, 1985-1989.

16/1/960 Faculty of Arts and Letters, Dean's Office, Outgoing Correspondence, 1986-1995 [1987-1992 bulk]