Curriculum Vitae

Jennifer Summit

Curriculum Vitae PDF
Education
Johns Hopkins University, Ph.D., English Literature, 1995
Vassar College, B.A., English Major, 1987
Academic Positions
Professor of English, Stanford University, 2008-present
Associate Professor of English, with tenure, Stanford University, 2001-08
Assistant Professor of English, Stanford University, 1995-2001
Administrative Experience
Leadership Experience
Director of Integrated Learning, Stanford, 2013-present

coordinate and oversee the university’s new clustered courses and learning communities (the Helix program)
work with departments and programs to develop integrative capstones for majors
reach out to faculty, departments, and programs to generate support for and participation in undergraduate learning communities and thematic course clusters.

Chair, Committee for the Review of the Undergraduate Major, Stanford, 2013-present

chair of a university-wide committee that reviews undergraduate majors and curricula in departments and programs across the university
responsibility to oversee approval process for Interdisciplinary Programs, Interdisciplinary Majors, and Special Majors

Chair, University Writing and Oral Communication Requirements Revision, Stanford, 2010-12

led university-wide committee that revised Stanford’s writing requirements
as core member of SUES (Study of Undergraduate Education at Stanford), evaluated and revised Stanford’s General Education requirements in 2 year, university-wide process

Chair, Department of English, Stanford, 2008-11

initiated and led full analysis and redesign of department’s curriculum and major
raised new endowment from private donors to create internship program for majors

Co-Founder and Co-Director, Stanford Center for Medieval and Early Modern Studies, 2007-10

led 60+ affiliated colleagues to form vibrant interdisciplinary community
won grant from Stanford Humanities Center to produce ongoing graduate workshop

Director, Medieval Studies Program, Stanford University, 2006-08

redesigned interdisciplinary, team-taught core for undergraduate major and minor
founded “Medieval Matters” public lecture series, in partnership with Stanford Continuing Studies, featuring high-profile speakers for community and local teachers

Director, Honors Program, English Department, Stanford University, 2005-07

initiated full revision of honors requirements and application process

Leadership Development
A.C.E. Fellow (American Council on Education), San José State University, 2012-13
Full-year placement at San José State University with mentors President Mohammad Qayoumi and Provost Ellen Junn. Fellowship focus: undergraduate education and curricular innovation for student learning, engagement and success

at SJSU, chaired Task Force on Student Engagement to analyze institutional research on student engagement and success and increase high-impact practices campus-wide
created and launched “Preparing Future Professors,” a teaching mentorship exchange between Stanford graduate students and SJSU faculty focused on undergraduate teaching
analyzed and recommended best practices in the administration of undergraduate learning communities, student internships, and outcomes-based teaching and learning

SCUP (Society for College and University Planning), Integrated Planning Institute (2012)

participated in institute focused on best practices in integrated strategic planning
emphasis on institutional analysis, planning strategy, communication, and assessment

Voice and Influence Program, Clayman Institute for Gender Research, Stanford, 2012-13
Stanford Leadership Institute, 2009-10
Associated Departments of English (ADE), summer chairs’ seminar, 2008-10
University Experience (selected)
Advising

Planning team member and pilot faculty, Freshman Reflections (2011-12) helped plan, design, and lead new first-year advising program focused on supporting students’ non-cognitive and affective development
Advisor to Community College Transfer Students, Stanford University (2006-07)
Advisor to incoming freshmen, English majors, and honors students (1995-present)

Budget and Personnel

University Appointments and Promotions Committee, School of Humanities and Sciences (2008-11)
Budget Advisory Committee to the Dean of Humanities and Sciences (2009-11)

Civic engagement

Advisory Committee, High School Program Design Project, Haas Center (2013-present)
Faculty Steering Committee, Haas Center for Public Service (2012-present)

General education

Study of Undergraduate Education at Stanford, to revise General Education (2010-12)
Program in Writing and Rhetoric Review Board (2010-12)
Introduction to the Humanities (General Education) Governance Board (2005-2007)

Undergraduate education

Undergraduate Advisory Council to the Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education (2011-present)
Committee on Undergraduate Standards and Procedures (2005-6, 2008-9)

Consulting and Training Experience
Course Design and Effective Teaching
Stanford University, “Course Design Boot Camp,” September 2013
- co-led workshop for new Assistant Professors on course design and teaching (with Sheri Sheppard, Mechanical Engineering, and Center for Teaching and Learning leaders), with regular follow-up meetings and communications
- topics included making course content decisions, teaching effectively, creating assignments that solidify learning, defining and assessing learning outcomes
Stanford University, “Teaching for Learning,” February 2012
- led seminar as part of CTL series, Award-Winning Teachers on Teaching
- topics included developing learning outcomes, using research on student learning
Curriculum Design
University of Alberta, January 2013
- led discussions with students, faculty groups and administrators toward redesign of BA
Western Washington University, February 2013
- consulted with stakeholders and advised Committee on Undergraduate Education on General Education redesign process and goals
Stanford University, Faculty Fellow, Center for Teaching and Learning, 2011-13
- advised academic departments undertaking program review and curriculum revision (History, Religious Studies, Division of Literatures, Languages and Cultures, and others)
Publications and Major Presentations
Publications about the Profession
“Global Learning requires New Teaching,” Change Magazine (forthcoming November/ December, 2013)
“The Humanities Aren’t As Dead As You Think” Zócalo Public Square (August 19, 2013)
“Renaissance Humanism and the Future of the Humanities” Literature Compass 9 (2012): 665-678:
“Literary History and the Curriculum: How, What, and Why,” Profession (2010): 141-150, reprinted from the ADE Bulletin 149 (2010)
Invited Presentations about the Profession
“Beyond Useless: the New Humanities,” invited talk, University of Manitoba, March 2013
“Curriculum Reform from the Ground Up,” invited talk, University of Alberta, February 2013
“The Study of Literature and the English Major at Stanford” invited talk, “What Works and What Matters in Student Learning,” Teagle Foundation Convening, NYC, June 2012
“Literature, Literacy, and Undergraduate Education,” invited talk, President’s Panel, Annual Convention of the Modern Language Association (MLA), Philadelphia, December 2009
“The Life of the Mind at the Dawn of the Disciplines,” invited talk, Yale University, March 2009
Academic Publications: Books
Action vs. Contemplation: Why an Ancient Debate Still Matters, co-authored with Blakey Vermeule (Stanford) (under contract for completion in fall, 2013, University of Chicago Press)
Memory’s Library: Medieval Books in Early Modern England (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008; paperback edition, 2011); reviewed in Speculum, Studies in the Age of Chaucer, Times Literary Supplement, Renaissance Quarterly, American Historical Review, Review of English Studies, and others
Lost Property: The Woman Writer and English Literary History, 1380-1589 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000)
Academic Publications: Articles (selected)
“’Bequeathed Care’: Rethinking Spenser’s Contemplation,”Spenser Review 41 (2011): 1-10.
“Active and Contemplative Lives,” in Cultural Reformations: from Lollardy to the English Civil War, edited by Brian Cummings and James Simpson, Twenty-First Century Approaches, 2 (Oxford: Oxford University Press: 2010)
“From Anchorhold to Lady's Closet: Julian of Norwich in 1670,” in The Legacy of Julian of Norwich, ed. Sarah Salih and Denise Baker (New York: Palgrave/Macmillan: 2009)
“Leland’s Itinerary and the Remains of the Medieval Past,” in Reading the Medieval in Early Modern England, ed. Gordon McMullan and David Mathews (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 159-176.
“Writing Home: Hannah Wolley, the Oxinden Letters, and Household Epistolarity” in Women, Property, and the Letters of the Law in Early Modern England, ed. Nancy E. Wright, Margaret W. Ferguson and A. R. Buck (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2004), 201-218.
“Monuments and Ruins: Spenser and the Problem of the English Library,”ELH (English Literary History), 70 (2003): 1-34.
“Women and Authorship” in The Cambridge Companion to Medieval Women’s Writing, ed. Carolyn Dinshaw and David Wallace (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 91-108.
Awards and Fellowships
Teaching Awards and Honors
Faculty Fellow, Stanford Center for Teaching and Learning, 2010-present
Eleanor Loring Ritch University Fellow in Undergraduate Education, 2008-present
Hoagland Family Award for Innovation in Undergraduate Teaching, 2007
Dean’s Award for Distinguished Teaching, Stanford University, 1998
Major Grants
Teagle Foundation, for “What is a Reader?” Research Project (Director, with team members from Stanford, UC Berkeley, UC Santa Cruz, Mills College), 2009-2013; $75,000
President’s Fund for Innovations in the Humanities (with Paula Findlen), 2007-8: $20,000
ACLS (American Council of Learned Societies), Burckhardt Fellowship for Recently Tenured Scholars, 2004-5
NEH (National Endowment for the Humanities), Full-Year Fellowship, 2002-3
Academic Awards and Honors (selected)
Collaborative Project Award (for The History of British Women’s Writing, 1500-1610), Society for the Study of Early Modern Women, 2011
John Ben Snow Book Prize (for Memory’s Library), North American Conference on British Studies, 2009
Roland H. Bainton Book Prize (for Memory’s Library), Sixteenth Century Studies and Conference, 2009
International Spenser Society, Isabel MacCaffrey Award (for best Spenser essay), 2005
Society for Medieval Feminist Scholarship, First Book Award, 2005
Modern Language Association First Book Award, Honorable Mention, 2001
Dean’s Fellow in the Humanities, Stanford University, 1999-2000
Fellow, Stanford Humanities Center, 1998-1999
Teaching
Graduate Pedagogy
“Teaching the Humanities,” “How We Teach and Why: A Seminar on Pedagogy” (both designed and taught with Pam Grossman, Stanford Graduate School of Education)
General Education
“Reading is Changing” (for “Social Inquiry” General Education requirement)
“Action vs. Contemplation” (for “Ethical Inquiry” General Education requirement)
“A Life of Thought or Action: Debates in Literature and Philosophy” Introduction to the Humanities, lecture course (designed with Blakey Vermeule, English Department)
“Writing and Critical Thinking: ‘College Fictions’” (fist-year writing course)
Core Requirements in the Major
"Literary History" English Department Core Sequence
(designed and taught with Roland Greene, English Department)
“Crusades: Interdisciplinary Perspectives” undergraduate lecture course
(designed with Philippe Buc, History Department, and Hester Gelber, Religious Studies Department)
“Honors Seminar” and “Honors College” (seminars for Honors students)
“Masterpieces of English Literature: Medieval and Renaissance” (lecture course)
Representative Courses in Field: Graduate
“Medieval Devotion,” “Medieval Texts and Topics,” “Chaucer,” “Medieval Women Writers,” “The Medieval Book,” “The Reformation in English Literature,”
“Elizabethan Literature,” “Women Writers: Materials and Research Methods”
Representative Courses in Field: Undergraduate
“Medieval Women: Faith, Love, and Learning” (lecture course), “Chaucer” (lecture course), “Women Writers of the Middle Ages” (seminar), “Elizabeth I and Elizabethan Literature” (seminar), “Medieval Literature of Courtly Love,” (seminar), “Masterpieces of English Literature” (lecture course), “Shakespeare on Film” (lecture course)
Professional Service
Professional Leadership (selected):
Organizer and Host, ADE (Association of Departments of English, Modern Language Association) Summer Chairs’ Seminar, Stanford University, June 2011
Chair, Selection Committee, Haskins Book Prize, Medieval Academy of America, 2013-2014
Chair, Selection Committee, MLA William Riley Parker Prize, 2009-2010
Executive Committee Member, International Spenser Society, 2005-2007
Book Manuscripts
reviewed for University of Chicago Press, University of Pennsylvania Press, Cambridge University Press, University of Minnesota Press, Notre Dame University Press, Yale University Press, Arizona Medieval and Renaissance Studies (Arizona State University).
Professional Memberships
American Association of Colleges and Universities (AAC&U); Society for College and University Planning (SCUP); American Council on Education (ACE); EDUCAUSE; Modern Language Association; Associated Departments of English; Medieval Academy; Renaissance Society of America.