Faculty Members Honored with Governance Award

The Arts & Sciences Award for Faculty Governance honors faculty members who devote special efforts to helping their colleagues through committee memberships and other services to departments, programs, Arts & Sciences, and William & Mary.

Magali Compan

Written by Giulia Pacini, Professor and Director of French & Francophone Studies

A profound commitment to internationalization and diversity animates Professor Compan's teaching, research, and impressive dedication to faculty governance. She is a specialist in contemporary Francophone studies, with a focus on the literature and the arts of the Indian Ocean from the colonial to the post-colonial period. Her research links this body of work to more frequently studied Francophone literatures of the Caribbean, Europe, and Sub-Saharan Africa.

Professor Compan has drawn upon this wide-ranging expertise in Francophone culture to help create institutional programs supporting curricular diversity at William & Mary. She first served as Chair of the African Studies Program from 2006 to 2009 and collaborated in the effort to develop the interdisciplinary Africana Studies Program which succeeded it. She was also an influential member of the committee that developed the interdisciplinary Global Studies major. She has created ambitious COLL 300 and COLL 350 courses in the deeply interdisciplinary field of African Francophone, Négritude, and Creolité studies. In similar fashion, Professor Compan has made the African Francophone world more visible to the broader Williamsburg community, most notably through her work on William & Mary’s first African Studies Film Festival (2004) and the French & Francophone Film Festival.

Most recently, Professor Compan has served on the College’s International Studies Advisory Committee and on the Educational Policy Committee where she chaired subcommittees tasked with reviewing proposals for COLL 300 and COLL 350 courses. In this role, she guided efforts to establish clear and consistent standards for the latest addition to the COLL curriculum, contributing immeasurably to the success of this vital initiative. Additionally, she worked tirelessly with Residential Life to design and implement our plans for the new Global Village.

The Governance Award recognizes a faculty member’s exceptional level of service to the College. For the past twenty years, Professor Compan has demonstrated an extraordinary commitment to innovative, effective, and responsible service at the level of program, department, school, and university, with a special dedication to improving curricular diversity and inclusion. She embodies these qualities to a rare degree and has given unremittingly of her time and energy ever since her arrival on campus. We cannot imagine a more deserving candidate for this award.

Hannah Rosen

Written by Tuska Benes, Professor and Chair of History

Professor Rosen joined William & Mary in 2013 as a joint appointment in History and American Studies. She has provided exceptional leadership in both academic units, as well as to the university at large. In the process, Professor Rosen has been a tireless and effective advocate for racial justice and equity on campus and in the broader community through committee service and public facing scholarship. She has also been a driving force behind curriculum development at William & Mary, providing vision and leadership on difficult and controversial topics surrounding race and inclusion.

Professor Rosen is currently co-chairing the substantial Future of Arts & Sciences Coordinating Committee, while serving as Director of American Studies. This is a massive commitment for anyone, but the extraordinary diligence and care with which Dr. Rosen approaches her service means she is more fully invested in the process than anyone else on campus would be. It’s hard to capture just how exacting and proficient Professor Rosen is when engaging in institution building. She does her research, thinks deeply, and invests more time than other leaders on campus. She has been selfless and generous in her willingness to invest in William & Mary despite the toll on her personal ambitions.

Professor Rosen has a sustained record of leadership in both American Studies and History, especially on issues of racial justice. She has served as Director of Graduate Studies for AMST; now she is in her first year as AMST Director. She is also chair of the Tyler Endowment Steering Committee for History, envisioning new initiatives that will acknowledge and repair the deprivation stemming from William & Mary’s enslavement and discriminatory exclusion of African Americans and Native Americans. She has served on the Diversity, Equity, and Justice Committee for American Studies during this period, at times as co-chair. This year she also sits on the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee for the History Department.

Professor Rosen has a distinguished record of service advocating for racial justice and equity at William & Mary. She was a driving force behind the creation of a crucial component of the COLL curriculum and has invested heavily in both American Studies and History. In both her accomplishments and her ethic of leadership, Hannah Rosen is an ideal candidate for the A&S Award for Faculty Governance.