Eschenbaum named dean of the School of Interdisciplinary Arts & Sciences

The University of Washington Tacoma is excited to announce the appointment of Dr. Natalie Eschenbaum as dean of the School of Interdisciplinary Arts & Sciences (SIAS) beginning Aug. 1, 2022. Dr. Eschenbaum is currently division chair of arts and humanities in the School of Humanities, Arts & Sciences at St. Catherine University in St. Paul, Minnesota.

“I am honored and excited to join the UW Tacoma community," said Dr. Eschenbaum. "SIAS is forward-thinking in its design and will be the model of liberal arts learning in the next few decades. We will keep access and inclusion central to all of our work."

She earned her B.A. in English (with a minor in philosophy) from Tulane University, and her Ph.D. in English from Emory University. Her research focuses on sensation studies and affect theory in early modern English literature. She publishes on Shakespeare and seventeenth-century poets, including Robert Herrick. She was professor of English, chair of English, and chair of the faculty senate at the University of Wisconsin, La Crosse, through 2020.

She began at St. Catherine University as a professor of English and became division chair of Arts & Humanities in 2020. She has served on the Modern Language Association’s Association of Departments of English (ADE) Executive Committee and was president of that group in 2021.

She believes the great needs of our time can best be addressed by working collaboratively across disciplinary lines, and together with the community’s organizations, non-profits and business.

Interdisciplinary Arts & Sciences is UW Tacoma's largest school enrolling almost 2,600 undergraduate students. It is also the campus's oldest academic program, founded when the campus opened in 1990. Original founded as Liberal Studies, it changed its name in 1998 and became a school in 2014.