Richard Paul Saller (born October 18, 1952) is an American

classicist Classics or classical studies is the study of classical antiquity. In the Western world, classics traditionally refers to the study of Classical Greek and Roman literature and their related original languages, Ancient Greek and Latin. Classics ...

. He is the former provost of the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the b ...

and the former dean of the School of Humanities and Sciences at

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 ...

, where he is currently the university's acting president. On July 19, 2023, Stanford University president Marc Tessier-Lavigne announced he would resign. Stanford University's board of trustees appointed Saller to serve as an interim president beginning on September 1.

Early life and education

Saller was born in 1952. He earned two

Bachelor of Arts Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four years ...

in history and ancient Greek at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, in 1974 and his Ph.D. from

Jesus College, Cambridge Jesus College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. The college's full name is The College of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Saint John the Evangelist and the glorious Virgin Saint Radegund, near Cambridge. Its common name comes fr ...

, in 1978.

Career

University of Chicago

In 1984, Saller began teaching Roman social and economic history at the

. He became a dean in 1994 and the university's provost in 2002. As dean, he attracted controversy for asking the university to shut down its educational department.

Stanford

In April 2007, Saller was made the dean of the School of Humanities and Sciences at

. He stepped down in September 2018 to teach full-time.

Awards and distinctions

Since 1986, the Saller Dissertation Prize has been awarded at University of Chicago for outstanding dissertations.

Personal life

Saller is married to anthropologist

Tanya Luhrmann Tanya Marie Luhrmann (born 1959) is an American psychological anthropologist known for her studies of modern-day witches, charismatic Christians, and studies of how culture shapes psychotic, dissociative, and related experiences. She has also ...

Publications

Books

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References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Saller, Richard 1952 births Living people Presidents of Stanford University University of Chicago faculty University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign alumni Alumni of Jesus College, Cambridge