Day to serve as acting senior vice provost for academic affairs
LAWRENCE — Stuart Day, associate professor of Spanish and director of Faculty Programs in the Office of International Programs at the University of Kansas, has been selected to serve as acting senior vice provost for academic affairs.
Day, a 10-year veteran at KU, will assume the role currently held by Professor of Linguistics Sara Rosen as she takes on new duties as interim provost of KU. Chancellor Bernadette Gray-Little announced in late October that Rosen would temporarily handle the responsibilities of KU Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor Jeffrey S. Vitter, who was selected to be the next chancellor of the University of Mississippi. Day and Rosen’s appointments become effective Jan. 1, 2016.
“I’m pleased that Stuart has agreed to assist during this important time of transition,” Rosen said. “I know he will do an excellent job and continue to champion initiatives underway in academic affairs. His presence will help ensure that we maintain momentum and continue to see progress.”
Day, who came to KU in 2005, served as chair of the Spanish and Portuguese department from 2010 to 2015. He’s held a number of leadership roles within the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and the university. He was awarded the W. T. Kemper Fellowship for Teaching Excellence in 2009 and was a 2011-2012 Senior Administrative Fellow. His main area of teaching and research is contemporary Latin American literature, with a focus on theater and performance in Mexico.
Day is a member of the KU Latina/Latino Studies Initiative and core faculty in the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies. He has served as associate chair and chair of Spanish and Portuguese, managing editor of the Latin American Theatre Review and on the advisory board of the PMLA.
His first book, “Staging Politics in Mexico: The Road to Neoliberalism,” was published by Bucknell University Press. Day has also published several anthologies and co-edited, with Jacqueline Bixler, “El Teatro de Rascón Banda: voces en el umbral” (Escenología). He has published articles, play introductions and interviews in a variety of journals. Day’s theoretical approach is informed mainly by cultural studies and performance studies, and his courses often have to do with social justice.
Recent research includes book chapters and articles on Federico Gamboa (“Performing the Porfiriato: Federico Gamboa and the Performance of Power”); Sabina Berman (“Similia similibus curantur: La exhumación de lo real en Backyard de Sabina Berman”); Vicente Leñero (“Transposing Professions: Vicente Leñero and the Politics of the Press”); and a piece based on interviews with Sabina Berman and Jesusa Rodríguez (“It’s My National Stage Too: Sabina Berman and Jesusa Rodríguez as Public Intellectuals”). This topic — public intellectuals in Mexico — is the subject of a volume Day recently completed with Debra Castillo. Day currently has three book projects under review: “Strategic Alliances: Performances That Shape Mexico," “Mexico Through Art” and “Engaging Latin@ and Latin American Theater.” Though his research is often focused on Mexico, Day has also worked with numerous doctoral students on a variety of projects that include theatre and performance, film, Mexican narrative, print culture, cyberpunk, Latina/Latino literature and migration.
From 2000 to 2005, he taught at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he was a Faculty Fellow and recipient of two teaching and mentoring awards. Day earned a bachelor’s degree in Spanish and education, with a minor in bilingual education, from Northern Arizona University, a master’s degree in Hispanic literature from the University of Arizona and a doctorate in Latin American literature from Cornell University.