The American University of Rome (AUR) has announced the appointment of Dr. Richard Andrew Hodges as President of the University, effective July 2012.
Dr. Hodges is currently serving as Williams Director of the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology & Anthropology in Philadelphia through June 2012 and is also Director of the Institute of World Archaeology, University of East Anglia, Norwich. He received his Ph.D. from Southampton University where he also did his undergraduate work in History and Archaeology. He has had an active career in teaching, scholarship and archaeology, and also has served as director of the British School at Rome. Besides his many archaeological excavations in Italy, he has also been a visiting professor at the University of Siena and sits on several Italian boards. Hodges was made an Officer of the British Empire by the Queen in 1995.
“AUR is very pleased to have attracted Dr. Hodges, who is a world renowned archaeologist and academician and a proven leader,” says Andrew Palmieri, chairman of the presidential search committee and an attorney based in Washington. “As the American university serving a diverse international community in Italy’s Eternal City, we could not have hoped for a more exceptional person to grow our institution and forge new and exciting opportunities for our faculty and students.”
“In the search for a new president, the board took a very deliberate, thorough-going approach,” says AUR Board of Trustees Chairman Joseph Del Raso. “We were able to identify the best candidate from a topnotch field of applicants.”
Dr. Andrew Thompson, acting president since January 2011, will continue in that post until July 1, 2012, the start of the fiscal year as well Hodges’ tenure. He will return to his prior role of provost “to ensure the continuity of leadership and institutional stability,” Del Raso says, adding that “Dr. Hodges and Dr. Thompson will prove to be an impressive team.“
Founded in 1969 and incorporated in the District of Columbia, The American University of Rome is a private, independent, not-for-profit institution located on Rome’s Janiculum Hill (il Giancolo) that prepares degree-seeking and study-abroad students to live and work across cultures in an increasingly connected world. The oldest degree-granting American university in Rome, AUR offers B.A., B.S. and Associate Degrees in Art History, Archaeology and Classics, Business Administration, Communication & English, Film and Digital Media, International Relations and Global Politics, Interdisciplinary Studies, Italian Studies, Liberal Studies and International Business. The American University of Rome is accredited by the Middle States Commission on Higher Education.
For further information please contact Maurizia Garzia, Executive Assistant to the President, Media and PR relations: m.garzia@aur.edu, Tel 06 5833 0919, ext 209, cell. 348 808 3610
