The following originally appeared in UChicago News on 8 July 2016

Anne Walters Robertson, the Claire Dux Swift Distinguished Service Professor and chair of the Department of Music, has been named to serve as the interim dean of the Division of the Humanities until the next dean is in place. Her appointment was effective July 1.

“Anne’s appointment will foster the continued academic advancement of the Humanities Division while the search for the next dean is conducted,” said President Robert J. Zimmer.

Robertson joined the faculty in 1984 and has held several leadership positions at the University and in professional organizations, including serving as deputy provost for research and education and as president of the American Musicological Society.

“I have been privileged to teach and conduct research for more than 30 years in the Division of the Humanities, and I am honored now to serve as interim dean,” Robertson said. “The excellence of our faculty and students has always advanced the division, and I am eager to work with them to help continue to move us forward.”

Robertson’s research is focused on the music of the Middle Ages, with a concentration on 15th-century sacred polyphony, the 14th-century French composer Guillaume de Machaut, French medieval liturgical music, ceremony and architecture, and music and mysticism. She has received many scholarly honors and distinctions. In 2008, she was elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and in 2015 became a member of the American Philosophical Society.

The process for selecting the next dean of the Division of the Humanities is underway. Robertson succeeds Martha Roth, the Chauncey S. Boucher Distinguished Service Professor of Assyriology, who has returned to her full-time work on the faculty after serving as dean since 2007.

“Anne enjoys tremendous respect among her peers as a scholar and as an academic leader,” said Provost Daniel Diermeier. “I am very pleased that Anne has agreed to serve as the interim dean. The Division of the Humanities will be in excellent hands under her leadership.”