Art History Professor Recognized by The University of Scranton
Art history professor Josephine M. Dunn, Ph.D., was named as The University of Scranton CASE Professor of the Year in recognition of her outstanding performance as a faculty member.
The University of Scranton named Josephine M. Dunn, Ph.D., associate professor of history, its CASE Professor of the Year in recognition of her outstanding performance as a member of the faculty.
Professors awarded by individual schools are then eligible for further recognition by the Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE) at the state and national levels.
“I can count on one hand the number of truly inspiring teachers with whom I have worked over a lifetime in education,” said Dr. Dunn. “In all ways, I have tried to model them in the classroom. So, this award really belongs to Sr. Margit Maria, Peter Guenther and Irene Winter. I am honored to pass the torch forward as The University of Scranton’s CASE Professor of the Year.”
Dr. Dunn, a resident of Waverly, joined the faculty at The University of Scranton in 1988, serving first in the Fine Arts Program and now as a member of the University’s History Department. In addition to directing the department’s Art and Music Program, she teaches a wide range of courses and collaborates with art history minors preparing for graduate study in art history, museum studies and historic preservation. An organizer and leader of travel seminars to Italy and Greece, she also arranges trips for students to art museums in New York City, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C. A member of the Order Pro Deo et Universitate, she collaborated in designing the Individualized Major and now directs the first student to major in art history.
A strong advocate of local history research, Dr. Dunn designs courses and museum internships for students on the art and architecture of Scranton, the history of women, city planning and urban reform, and oral history. In 2007, she founded the Biennial Regional Conference on Women and History in NEPA, which attracts leading historians to Scranton and provides a platform for students to share their research with the local community. As a Pennsylvania Commonwealth Speaker, Dr. Dunn represents the Pennsylvania Humanities Council throughout the state as a lecturer on extraordinary and largely unrecognized women in regional history. In May 2010, her lecture will be filmed for PCN TV’s “Humanities on the Road.” She has written two books: Waverly and the Waverly Community House (2008) and The Women of Scranton: 1880–1935 (2007), which she coauthored, as well as a history brochure entitled Legendary Ladies: A Guide to Where Women Made History in Pennsylvania, Northeast Mountains Region, which was published by the Pennsylvania Commission for Women in 2008.
During her teaching career, Dr. Dunn has received numerous grants and scholarships: two Fulbright grants to Italy; a Samuel H. Kress Foundation Scholarship at the Kunsthistorisches Institut, Florence, Italy; two National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Seminar/Institutes (Cornell University and Oxford University, England); and many local and state grants. Her articles on Renaissance art have appeared in international journals, and she has twice presented papers at the Medieval International Congress at Kalamazoo, Mich. In 2010, she became an honorary member of the National Jesuit Honor Society, Alpha Sigma Nu.
Prior to joining The University of Scranton faculty, Dr. Dunn taught art history at Rice University in Houston, Texas, where she won an Outstanding Teacher award. She holds two undergraduate degrees, summa cum laude — a B.F.A. in studio art and a B.A. in art history from the University of Houston, where she graduated as Phi Kappa Phi Distinguished Graduating Senior in the College of Fine Arts and Humanities. She earned an M.A. and a Ph.D. in art history at the University of Pennsylvania.
