Alison R. Byerly is an American academic, who is serving as the 12th president of
Carleton College
Carleton College ( ) is a private liberal arts college in Northfield, Minnesota. Founded in 1866, it had 2,105 undergraduate students and 269 faculty members in fall 2016. The 200-acre main campus is between Northfield and the 800-acre Cowling ...
in
Northfield, Minnesota
Northfield is a city in Dakota and Rice counties in the State of Minnesota. It is mostly in Rice County, with a small portion in Dakota County. The population was 20,790 at the 2020 census.
History
Northfield was platted in 1856 by John W. N ...
. She was previously the 17th president of
Lafayette College
Lafayette College is a private liberal arts college in Easton, Pennsylvania. Founded in 1826 by James Madison Porter and other citizens in Easton, the college first held classes in 1832. The founders voted to name the college after General Laf ...
in
Easton, Pennsylvania
Easton is a city in, and the county seat of, Northampton County, Pennsylvania, United States. The city's population was 28,127 as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. Easton is located at the confluence of the Lehigh River, a river tha ...
.
Early life
Byerly was born in
Glenside, Pennsylvania
Glenside is a census-designated place (CDP) located in Cheltenham Township and Abington Township in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, United States. It borders Northwest Philadelphia. The population was 7,737 at the 2020 census on a land area of ...
, in
Montgomery County in 1961. She earned a bachelor of arts degree with honors in English at
Wellesley College
Wellesley College is a private women's liberal arts college in Wellesley, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1870 by Henry and Pauline Durant as a female seminary, it is a member of the original Seven Sisters Colleges, an unofficial g ...
in 1983, a master of arts in English at the
University of Pennsylvania
The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...
in 1984, and a doctorate in English from Penn in 1989 where she was awarded a University Fellowship, the Dean's Fellowship, Dean's Award for Distinguished Teaching, and Mellon Dissertation Fellowship. At Wellesley, she was awarded Wellesley's Jacqueline Award in English Composition and Mary C. Lyons Prize in Writing.
Career
Byerly's area of specialty is the intersection of literature and other media with research focus on
Victorian literature
Victorian literature refers to English literature during the reign of Queen Victoria (1837–1901). The 19th century is considered by some to be the Golden Age of English Literature, especially for British novels. It was in the Victorian era tha ...
, culture and media;
digital humanities
Digital humanities (DH) is an area of scholarly activity at the intersection of computing or Information technology, digital technologies and the disciplines of the humanities. It includes the systematic use of digital resources in the humanitie ...
; technology and the liberal arts.
Byerly was at
Middlebury College
Middlebury College is a private liberal arts college in Middlebury, Vermont. Founded in 1800 by Congregationalists, Middlebury was the first operating college or university in Vermont. The college currently enrolls 2,858 undergraduates from all ...
from 1989, serving as
provost and executive Vice President at
Middlebury College
Middlebury College is a private liberal arts college in Middlebury, Vermont. Founded in 1800 by Congregationalists, Middlebury was the first operating college or university in Vermont. The college currently enrolls 2,858 undergraduates from all ...
in
Vermont
Vermont () is a state in the northeast New England region of the United States. Vermont is bordered by the states of Massachusetts to the south, New Hampshire to the east, and New York to the west, and the Canadian province of Quebec to ...
from 2007 to 2012. She has been a visiting scholar at
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the ...
,
Stanford University
Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...
, and
Oxford University
Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...
.
Byerly became president of Lafayette College in 2013, and in 2016 launched a 10-year plan to increase the student body by 16 percent, more than double the financial aid budget, and create 40 new faculty positions with a goal of allowing Lafayette to admit more students without regard for their ability to pay. By 2019, the aid budget had grown by 30 percent, the student body by 100 students, and the faculty by 11 positions. Under Byerly's leadership, Lafayette also launched and completed its largest-ever fund-raising effort, and opened its largest capital project ever, the Rockwell Integrated Sciences Center. On October 6, 2020 she announced her decision to retire at Lafayette effective the end of the school year.
In August 2021, Byerly became president of Carleton College.
Personal life
Byerly is married to Stephen Jensen, a medical editor. They have a daughter and a son. She is also the owner of three zebra finches.
She is known to students at both Carleton and Lafayette Colleges as "Allie B."
Published works
She has written ''Realism, Representation, and the Arts in Nineteenth-Century Literature'' (Cambridge, 1998), and ''Are We There Yet? Virtual Travel and Victorian Realism'' (U of Michigan, 2012).
References
External links
Announcement of Presidency of Carleton CollegeByerly's web pageByerly lecture: Humanities in the Digital Age
{{DEFAULTSORT:Byerly, Alison
Living people
Education in Pennsylvania
Lafayette College faculty
Lafayette College trustees
Presidents of Lafayette College
1961 births
Presidents of Carleton College
Wellesley College alumni
University of Pennsylvania alumni
People from Montgomery County, Pennsylvania