Barbara Fuchs to lead division’s public and engaged humanities initiatives
Courtesy of Barbara Fuchs
Barbara Fuchs, a professor Spanish and English, leads the innovative Diversifying the Classics initiative.
| September 15, 2025
Barbara Fuchs has been appointed the Humanities Division’s inaugural associate dean for public and engaged humanities.
In the new role, Fuchs, a distinguished professor of Spanish with a joint appointment in English, will lead efforts to establish new projects — and support existing ones — aimed at building UCLA Humanities’ engagement across and beyond the Los Angeles area.
“It’s a great honor to inaugurate this position, intended to promote the dazzling work colleagues are doing in the public humanities,” Fuchs said. “The division’s commitment to public-facing initiatives is very heartening at a time when universities urgently need to communicate the import of what we do.
“My goal is to assist with the work already occurring while offering colleagues interested in exploring public-facing projects the tools and support they need.”
Numerous UCLA Humanities scholars already are engaged in a wealth of projects in public and engaged humanities, including partnerships with museums, literary organizations, community arts groups and K-12 programs, said Humanities Dean Alexandra Minna Stern.
“Establishing this new position is a bold statement of our division’s commitment to be at the forefront of public-facing humanistic work that makes a tangible difference in the world, both in and beyond Los Angeles,” Stern said. “Given her visionary, dedicated leadership of the Diversifying the Classics initiative, Barbara Fuchs is the ideal person to take on this role.”
She added that the associate dean’s role complements and builds upon the recent work of the division’s Humanities Task Force for Community Engaged Scholarship, which was led in 2024–25 by professors David D. Kim and Asma Sayeed.